When asked "What is new in the automotive supply chain," the Supply Chain Council Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA) and the automotive industry Action Group (AIAG, Southfield, MI) has much to tell. There was talk of management, restructuring strategy issues, and the other spoke of technology standards. Both responses are a good omen for the future, as these are indicative of the incremental improvements in the management of the automobile supply chain (SCM).
RETHINKING SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES
automotive suppliers second level seem to be doing "a lot of downsizing, as well as work on the balance of a number of problems of the supply chain, said Scott Stephens, director of technology supply chain Council . In particular, providers of first and second levels have alternately focused on inventory management and reducing costs in the supply chain and service levels. Focusing on individual issues, the management of each one separately, it is not an optimal method of SMC. As noted by Scott, SMC is a problem of multi-dimensional business. Improve service levels alone often skews inventory inventory management only distorts performance. A logistical point of view not necessarily lend themselves to perform well as a supply chain perspective, and vice versa.
However, there is hope. Today, experience in global supply chain is maturing. "We are seeing a more deliberative process now these guys are trying to balance service levels, inventory speed, and costs," says Stephens.
Creation of common elements is the core of what the automotive companies and SCM solutions providers "(ie, software vendors and trade) are calling about. These participants in the supply chain unnecessary expenses in the maintenance of multiple products that do not add additional functionality to the job at hand, which is access, view, share and use data. For example, a Level 2 provider relies on various products of visibility of the supply chain when communicating with multiple Tier 1 customers. Because these providers often can not afford to customize each software product or to integrate their back-end systems, suppliers tend to buy more software products - as well as individual providers of investment in various design products based computer-aided design of electronic standards imposed by their customers. In addition to the costs incurred, suppliers have to re-enter data manually into each product visibility.
The IV and I of the project will establish a set of standards for data interchange for supply chain and its users, including SCM software vendors offer, trade, and even the companies in writing their own SCM software at home. This rule eliminates any additional costs on multiple (and redundant) software investments, including ongoing maintenance, change control, training, employee education, and real time to operate the various systems. The aim is to allow trading partners to use the software product the visibility of your choice for all customers. This data exchange is much more than display a web page on the Internet. "We're really going to pass the data that is readable by machine, which can be automatically integrated into back-end systems, and can be used without human intervention," explains Snack.
Project IV and recognize the needs of low-end suppliers. These providers typically only want to see data on the web because it is much easier for them, it requires little capital investment, and operations require very little external power data. In this case, the Project IV and establishes a standard for these providers can "rip and read" the necessary data.
