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What is a supply chain command center?

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Overview

Rethinking Supply Chain Visibility: From Control Towers to Command Centers

A supply chain command center is both an advanced framework and technology platform that combines AI, IoT, and advanced analytics with near-real-time data from various internal and external systems and sources. Command centers represent an evolution from traditional supply chain control towers, which typically focused on visibility into specific functions like logistics, sourcing, and manufacturing.

Command centers expand on the idea behind control towers, striving to democratize access to supply chain data insights across the different functions across the supply chain and beyond. They also focus on making information more actionable by displaying it in the user’s specific business context, helping companies to move from “reading the news” to acting on them. Command centers can leverage control towers as a key data source for delivering their broader ambition around comprehensive end-to-end supply chain visibility.

With a supply chain command center, you are looking to maximize the value of your supply chain data by making it readily accessible to all users, in the business context that is meaningful for them. This involves supporting various types of use cases and requires high degree of flexibility from the underlying technology platform.

Supply chain command center

How do command centers work in business operations today?

Command centers seek to make supply chain insights more actionable by addressing critical issues such as gaps in data availability, lack of access to the right data, and issues with data quality. This requires fundamental changes in the enabling technology and processes for leveraging the generated insights. Command centers act as the nervous system of an organization's operational infrastructure, consolidating data streams, alerts, and controls into a single data platform and surfacing this information to various types of users in alignment with their needs.

What are the core functions of command centers?

These sophisticated platforms enable businesses to monitor, analyze, and respond to events across their entire business ecosystem in real-time (or close to real-time), making them invaluable for organizations managing complex supply chains and partner networks. Command centers provide contextual visibility and enable organizations to detect and respond to issues before they impact business operations, while also providing valuable insights for strategic decision-making and process improvement over time.

How to determine success metrics for your command center?

A key goal of supply chain visibility is to provide controlled access to accurate, timely, and complete information about the workflows, events, and data across an organization’s supply chain operations. Today, supply chain visibility is often limited, information is not easily shared, and workflows and business processes are disconnected, which is why a command center can vastly improve how information comes together across the various types of user experiences to the benefit of multiple business stakeholders.

If your organization wants to invest in a command center, it’s important to establish clear metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of their command center implementations, for example improvements in response times, issue resolution rates, and system uptime. Organizations should track both immediate operational improvements and long-term trends in performance optimization. Comprehensive return on investment (ROI) analysis is also important. When implementing a command center, consider both direct cost savings and indirect benefits such as improved customer satisfaction and reduced risk exposure, including reduced downtime costs, improved resource utilization, and enhanced decision-making capabilities.

What are the benefits of implementing a command center?

A supply chain command center helps organizations fully utilize the vast volumes of supply chain data currently spread across disparate applications, systems, and databases. By breaking down data silos and enabling better data sharing across the supply chain and beyond, a command center helps make faster and better decisions across a number of use cases, leading to improved business outcomes.

Examples of use cases supported by a command center include:

  • Trading partner performance: Track and analyze partner performance metrics, including transaction volumes, compliance rates, and response times via a command center, so you can identify gaps, handle exceptions, and measure service level agreement (SLA) compliance.
  • Automated issue detection: Automatically identifies anomalies and potential problems in business transactions and supply chain operations, including validation of electronic data interchange (EDI) documents, monitoring of partner connectivity, and tracking of transaction processing status.
  • Streamlined resolution workflows: Initiate predefined workflows to facilitate rapid resolution, including automatic notification of relevant personnel, tracking of resolution progress, and documentation of resolution steps for future reference.
  • Reduced downtime and improved operational risk management: Enable teams to identify and address potential problems before they escalate into critical issues using real-time monitoring and alerts that help to maintain high service levels and minimize disruptions to business operations.
  • Predictive analytics and trend analysis: Identify patterns and trends in their operations, enabling more proactive decision-making and risk management.
  • Enhanced decision making: Make faster and more informed choices about resource allocation, process optimization, and strategic initiatives by gaining better visibility into daily operations.

What are key features you should look for in a command center?

With any supply chain command center, you want resiliency and versatility to ensure you can meet the varying demands of your diverse user base and adjust capabilities whenever necessary as your business needs evolve. While specific requirements can differ between organizations, a high-level architectural framework for a command center includes five key layers that must be present.

Key elements of a command center include:

  • Data hub: Centralized location for data capture, persistence, and management.
  • Digital supply chain twin: A digital representation of physical supply chain assets and processes.
  • Development library: Library for managing AI algorithms used for advanced analytics and automation.
  • Data visualization and insights: User interface(s) enabling different types of users to explore and analyze supply chain data.
  • Integration: Ability to connect and exchange data with a variety of internal and external systems and data sources.

How OpenText can help you build a command center for your supply chain?

OpenText Business Network Cloud includes sophisticated analytics tools that help organizations derive meaningful insights from their operational data. The OpenText™ Trading Grid Command Center is a portfolio of supply chain analytics and visibility tools leveraging a common data platform and the powerful capabilities of the OpenText Trading Grid integration platform.

Going beyond traditional supply chain control towers, OpenText™ Trading Grid Command Center allows companies to make maximal use of their supply chain data—bringing it together and presenting it in specific business contexts to drive deeper insights, ongoing optimization, and meaningful action.

Specifically designed to leverage B2B integration insights to support end-to-end supply chain operations, our solution can help you:

  • Optimize O2C and P2P processes: Leverage detailed B2B transaction data to track day-to-day supply chain process execution and optimize performance over time.
  • Drive deeper visibility into logistics flows: Track real-time shipment data and link it with key business transactions to form a holistic view of your logistics processes and optimize shipment handling.
  • Improve supply chain risk management: View consolidated partner risk insights in context of your business activity to better understand risk exposure and prioritize activities around risk mitigation.
  • Monitor business process health: Leverage detailed B2B transaction insights to understand the health of day-to-day partner collaboration and inform rapid response to emerging issues.

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