Today’s businesses are drowning in data. Supply chain operations especially generate massive amounts of structured and unstructured data that can give your business meaningful insights into how you can improve your processes. But how do you put it to full use?
This guide will show you the impact of supply chain data on your business, the different types of supply chain data you may have at your fingertips, and how you can use it to make more strategic decisions. We’ll also show you how you can implement real-time analysis to strengthen your supply chain resilience, and how supply chain data management can turn your logistics processes into a competitive edge.
What Is Supply Chain Data?
Supply chain data refers to any of the massive number of data points generated across all your operations. Some phases of your supply chain that may offer valuable data are:
- Procurement
- Inventory
- Logistics
- Sales
- Financial
- Returns processing
With so many areas of your business creating supply chain data, it’s important to know not only where you can find it, but also how you can leverage it to optimize your operations.
Why Supply Chain Data Analytics Matters
Data analytics examines massive amounts of raw data to draw conclusions, identify patterns, and derive actionable insights into your business processes so that you can make better decisions. Supply chain data analytics converts all those data points into actionable insights that can improve your logistics performance, but it takes accurate, reliable information. That’s why data matters so much in modern business landscapes — especially in logistics, which comprise a significant portion of the average company’s total costs.
Types of Supply Chain Data
There are many types of supply chain data. A few of them are:
- Transactional data: Sales transactions, shipping updates, product details
- Inventory data: SKUs, barcodes, storage specifications
- Logistics and transportation data: Miles traveled per vehicle, miles traveled per parcel, fuel costs
- Supplier and vendor data: Performance metrics, contact information, product specifications
- Production and operations data: Lead times, dwell times, throughput
- Customer order and fulfillment data: Shipping times, customer reviews, return rates
- Sensor and Internet of Things (IoT) data: Product quantities, storage temperature, humidity levels
- Forecasting and planning data: Seasonal trends, demand spikes, anticipated storage requirements
- Financial and cost data: Sales per product, cost per product, cost per parcel
- Environmental and compliance data: Fuel consumption, total emissions, total carbon footprint
These supply chain data points provide you with insights into your logistics and fulfillment processes, and provide important KPIs to track the health of your supply chain. However, it takes a comprehensive dataset to give you full supply chain visibility, so collecting as much data as possible from each category is a must.
Where Can You Get Supply Chain Data?
Whether you’re looking at production times from OEMs and Tier X suppliers or your delivery times and customer satisfaction rates, the supply chain data you gather should help you gauge your resilience. The exact data points you analyze will vary with your business goals, but some common supply chain data sources include:
- Suppliers and vendors: Which vendors have the longest lead times for your products’ components? Are any failing to meet the specifications in your service level agreements (SLA)? Evaluating the health of your supply chain partners can reveal choke points in your network so you can resolve the weakest link first.
- Your warehouse: From picking, packing, and dwell times to inventory levels and product data, warehouses can yield volumes of supply chain data. This data can help you find ways to increase your throughput and product velocity so you can get more products into consumers’ hands faster.
- Your fleet: Fleet data such as miles traveled and fuel consumption can help you calculate your shipping costs, and full-trailer load can measure how efficiently you’re using your fleet. This data is also a key component in your sustainability efforts, showing opportunities for reducing emissions.
By tapping into these and other data sources within your processes, you can discover operational bottlenecks, find ways to reduce your logistics costs, and make better-informed decisions on which products to sell. The result is not only more streamlined supply chains, but also higher profitability.
How Do You Collect Supply Chain Data?
Technology is essential for gathering comprehensive, accurate data on your supply chain. A few technologies you can implement to obtain and analyze your supply chain data are:
- RFID (radio frequency identification) tags: These passively provide product data such as inventory levels, storage conditions, and location within the warehouse.
- Bluetooth tags: These work similarly to RFID tags, but they must be actively scanned and have a longer signal transmission radius.
- IoT devices: These measure and record equipment performance, miles traveled, and fuel consumption.
- Supply chain management (SCM) software: This analyzes data across your supply chain in real time so you can make data-driven supply chain decisions.
As you implement these technologies, it’s best to work with a provider that not only has experience with each system, but also specializes in supply chain analytics. That way, they can help you assess your current supply chain environment and make recommendations on which technologies best fit your application.
How Do You Use Supply Chain Data?
Supply chain data can be used for everything from mitigating your supply chain risks to realigning your relationships with third-party providers. A few applications of supply chain data analytics include:
- Optimizing inventory
- Evaluating supplier performance
- Reducing operational costs
- Maximizing resource efficiency
- Improving real-time decision-making
- Creating risk management plans
Another key use for supply chain data is demand forecasting. Modern SCM platforms are equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) that powers predictive analytics, which lets you anticipate future product demand based on historical data. The result is better preparation for demand swings during the peak season, fewer stockouts and overstocks, and ultimately, greater profitability.
Build a Smarter Supply Chain With AI-Integrated Data Collection
Data analytics and supply chain management go hand-in-hand in today’s digital world. Companies that leverage AI-powered SCM platforms for real-time data collection will be equipped with data-driven insights that can give them a competitive advantage, while those that fail to tap into the wealth of logistics data will be left behind.
Logistics teams need an end-to-end supply chain solutions provider to take full advantage of their supply chain data and achieve real-time visibility over their supply network, and Surgere delivers just that. We provide the software, hardware, and expertise needed to solve tomorrow’s supply chain challenges today. Our solutions help you dive deep into your data for better supply chain analytics. Contact Surgere today to see what we can do.
