As the maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) supply chain evolves from a cost center to a strategic asset, organizations increasingly are seeking ways to bust through silos, align processes, add flexibility, and build synergies in the supply chain ecosystem. An integrated MRO supply chain reduces avoidable expenditures, minimizes waste, and generates efficiencies on the production floor and beyond.
Supply chain functions within organizations, and the procurement professionals who run them, are gaining more influence over the strategic operations of their organizations. Well-managed supply chains bring critical spare parts and consumables under direct monitoring and enable mobilization of just-in-time delivery, identification of back-up and tertiary suppliers, faithful compliance to on-contract purchasing, vendor diversity and consolidation, reliable production and maintenance planning, and other money and cost savers.
The Business Case for Integrated Supply Chain Management
A number of drivers – many accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic – have highlighted the need for manufacturing, retail, and other companies to bring as many supply chain components as possible under active, integrated management. The rise in consumerism, and the instant gratification consumers have come to expect thanks to Amazon and other eCommerce leaders, provide the impetus behind the democratization of Industry 4.0 technologies. Enterprises must adopt, adapt, and modernize to keep pace with the competition. Actively managed and integrated, MRO procurement coordination gives organizations the resiliency and agility they need to pounce on market opportunities and insulate themselves from demand shifts, inflation, transportation bottlenecks, and other potential business disrupters. Integration digitally connects all facets of supply into a matrix, linking compliance, risk management, data sourcing, analytics, fulfillment, payments, warehouse management, and any department, plant, assembly line or partner into a proactive network. This interconnectivity gives systems and decision-makers access to up-to-date shareable data for mobilizing strategies.
SDI’s Supply Chain as a Service (SCaaS)
Leveraging digital technologies delivers major benefits, but the investment in infrastructure and the cost of aligning and interfacing with suppliers and legacy systems can be costly and call for diverse skillsets that manufacturing companies may not possess in-house. Engaging SDI’s SCaaS solutions often proves to be a cost-effective method for reaping the benefits without incurring the expense of major on-premises upgrades and additional IT expertise.
SDI’s ZEUS is a full-stack MRO platform that brings together the major supply chain components: warehouse/inventory, supplier network, production/maintenance planning, and spend/service data to holistically streamline performance:
- Cashflow Optimization – Take advantage of volume pricing, limit rogue purchases, extend payables cycles, reduce transaction fees, track warranties, reconcile billing errors.
- Warehouse Management – Lower carrying costs with right-sized inventory, eliminate slow-moving and obsolete inventory.
- Operational Efficiency – Allocate resources to core competencies rather than procurement, gain transparency on supply quantities and location, schedule predictive maintenance, predict demand shifts, prevent stockouts.
Expertise Makes the Difference
These services contribute directly to our clients’ bottom lines by deploying SDI’s nuanced, end-to-end understanding of each business function’s mission and how the MRO supply chain can facilitate – or, if not handled properly, hinder – its performance. Demonstrating this expertise grants our clients visibility into the end-to-end supply chain, increasing the touchpoints through which procurement and supply chain savings can be achieved. Our insight into supply and market dynamics, honed over 50 years in business, gives us the upper hand in negotiations and empowers us to pass along to our customers significant savings we achieve by consolidating purchases, nurturing supplier relationships, and making decisions based on best-in-class data. SDI’s granular analysis of purchases made in real-time guarantees accurate pricing and red flags any off-contract purchases for review before they are finalized.
We continually demonstrate our resourcefulness in identifying supplies of critical materials, a skill that proved invaluable to many of our clients when personal protective equipment and other basic supplies ran scarce during the height of the pandemic. Supply chain integration is not complete without SDI’s strategic sourcing which ensures steady, uninterrupted influx of input needed to keep the factory lights burning and the lines moving. We customize supply objectives for each firm based on criticality, cost, risk tolerance, and other factors, then adjust tactics to meet any market condition. Again, our enriched first-party data, precise benchmarking, and longstanding supplier relationships give us a head start in identifying conditions that might warrant adjustment to maintain an integrated supply chain.
Digital tools integrate the storeroom into the total supply chain solution and automate major portions of the process. Our platform leaves nothing to chance:
- Closing gaps in data cleansing and consistency
- Employing headless commerce principles to quickly adjust buying, selling, and payment activities
- Standardizing industry cycle counts, requisitioning, reordering, and more
- Training users in the software’s capabilities and interface.
- Tracking of KPIs and other metrics.
To learn more about how Zeus and SDI’s experienced professionals can integrate your MRO supply chain to facilitate information sharing, drive strategies, and contain costs, contact SDI today.
