Common Supply Chain Challenges

The Supply Chain Council is assisting companies to take a close look at their supply chains in rooting out some major inefficiency. Their mission is advancement of supply chain knowledge and how to apply it in solving problems. Some of the following are challenges faced in a supply chain and how the supply chain council proposes to assist in solving them:
• Customer service is very important in the supply chain in delivering the right product, in the right condition, right quantity, right price, right location, right time, and right documentation. It does sound simple and straightforward but indeed, it is not. The council offers a supply chain operations reference model, which create a foundation for improvement. It will assist in evaluating cost performance; develop strategies for meeting customer expectations and respond to global as well as domestic market.
• Cost control which are constantly under pressure in any supply chain and the council offers their SCOR mark-benchmarking portal in order to provide organizations with metrics as the basis in measuring the success in the achievement of objectives.
• Risk management and planning is another challenge in a supply chain and the SCOR method will lead to faster implementation, easier coordination, comprehensive identification of potential risks and more. Users will be able to establish rules and strategies, coordinate responses, assign responsibilities, as well as monitor current conditions. Inside the SCOR model is a special inclusion of risk in addressing needs of a company.
• Supplier and Partner relationship management is the other challenge addressed by the council with their SCOR program. Organizations as well as department inside an organization have their own methods in communicating and measuring performance results and expectations. They offer a common language across all boards fro the classification and analysis of a supply chain. The use of a common language and framework make communications easier between teams, enhances evaluation of best practices and speed up benchmarking efforts..