How to overcome the challenges of supply chain shortages and disruption?

Can Latin American countries be resilient and withstand adversity, exploring opportunities for milder restrictions? Will logistical constraints remain in 2023? How can Supply Chain intelligence take advantage of data, forecasts, commodities and what can we expect from mobility restrictions, inputs and so many others?

With the post-covid recovery, supply chain management is increasingly complex and volatile due to events, such as the Suez Canal accident, the war in Ukraine, the embargoes against Russia and the recurring closures of Chinese ports.

Although Latin America is one of the major exporters of commodities and one of the regions with the fewest extraordinary restrictions, it is also affected by rising costs and logistical delays.

Hau Lee, Professor Emeritus at Stanford, warned that many companies have devoted their energy to pursuing cost-effective supply chains, but few have understood their importance to competitive and strategic advantage in his seminal article, in the October 2004 Harvard Business Review. Prior to that, in April 1997, the same professor published in the MIT business magazine (Sloan Management Review), the article that made the ‘bullwhip effect’ and its implications for supply chain management famous, and is very applicable to this is our current moment.

Now, nearly 20 years later, leading companies and entire industries find themselves dependent on natural resources, supplies or components from a single source, be it a supplier, country or region. The post-covid recovery has proven how the bullwhip effect is a problem that few companies are prepared to deal with.

Fostering agility, adapting the supply chain and creating the correct alignment among all stakeholders are strategies that can be leveraged through digital transformation and technologies that promote collaboration, integration, visibility and speed to processes.

We, at Exed Consulting, help large leading companies in the adoption of Digital Supply Chain solutions for integrated planning, logistics and production.

We support the adoption of digital tools for integrated supply chain planning, to anticipate and react to changes in demand, optimize fulfillment with alternative sources of supply, maximize logistical and warehousing constraints and optimize inventory policies, to achieve the level of desired service, even with the current volatility experienced by consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and natural resources companies such as Electrolux, GrupoNC (EMS), Braskem and Oxiteno.

The digital transformation of logistics seeks to expand reception and dispatch capacity with the same resources and infrastructure available, reduce movement in warehouses, improve the traceability of materials inside and outside the gates and increase the logistics occupancy rate, as in our cases. of success in the Votorantim Group, Marcopolo and Ajinomoto.

These benefits also include the possibility of reducing setup times by optimizing production planning and control, with automation and industry 4.0 solutions, as in cases of support for pharmaceutical companies such as Aché and ArcelorMittal.

Get ahead with resilient and agile supply chain management with Exed Consulting!