Boost Supply Chain Resilience Through Microsoft Cloud

Covid 19 posed unforeseen challenges and disruptions in the supply chain for manufacturing companies. The adaptability to tackle those challenges in production and distributions came into the spotlight during the said period of complexities.

The manufacturers are now focused on building systems that could help them prevent and minimize supply chain disruptions to achieve sustainable growth. In the current era, according to a survey, almost 90 percent of supply chain professionals are planning to invest in making their supply chains more resilient.  The key to making supply chain adaptive and resilient is two major fronts:

Recipe for creating a more resilient supply chain

• Planning and optimization. The minimum you should aim to achieve from is to increase service level efficiency and reduce cost.
• Visibility. For minimizing risk and capitalizing on future opportunities, use supply and demand signals.

Even though there are still some prominent supply chain lags like shipment delays with lead times twice as usual, most of the manufacturers are positive about the future opportunities.

In response to the shipment delays and other common challenge, manufacturers are focused on streamlining their processes that could bring scalability in their businesses and a lean supply chain.

Microsoft solutions and capabilities could help manufacturers in this regard in many ways:

• Access to necessary data. The biggest nightmare for a manufacturer is to have stockouts or excessively stocking goods than needed. By digitalizing the manufacturing process through Microsoft, you get access to real time data and a unified platform from many sources that helps in real time decision making and accurate forecasting. Thus, it results in a more streamlined supply chain.
• Increased collaboration and trust. Through Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain insights manufacturers could predict supply shortages by maintaining the vendor data in the vendor collaborative portal. The Microsoft capabilities helps in determining and breaking down siloes.
• Predicting disruptions independently. Microsoft capabilities allows the manufacturers to create a digital twin of their supply chain with complete model scenarios and simulations, that helps in predicting problems. Manufacturers can automate the best response in advance, resulting in saving time when disruptions happen.

Used case studies

For making the manufacturing solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management more agile companies make use of Microsoft Cloud. Here’s How:

One of the global audio and video brands (GN Group) has successfully made delivery estimates more accurate and provided employees with real-time visibility into parts on hand. Moreover, they streamlined inventory management by building a vendor-managed inventory (VMI) mobile solution that the warehouse staff uses to scan products.

Another example is a Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) development team that created a circular, reverse supply chain using Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management for processing e-waste from Microsoft data centers that help in collecting, managing, reusing, and recycling old parts. As a result, the first Circular Center location has reused 83 percent of critical parts and recycled 17 percent of the old parts.

Make supply chains resilient now, prepare for future

For building a more resilient supply chain for the future, leaders should start investing in technologies today. Manufacturers face many challenges and complexities, but improving supply chain visibility, planning, and optimizing it will help these companies thrive and be future-ready. It is best to focus on bringing transparency, unifying data and distilling it into actionable insights, using Microsoft Capabilities to model scenarios, and predicting problems would help to face disruptions smoothly.