Supply Chain Optimization: Doing More, Performing Better, Using Less

Executive summary

In this digital age, your business’s supply chain is forced to perform under more pressure than ever before – responding to global disruption and changing market conditions – while meeting increasing customer demands.

To achieve this, your supply chain needs to be operating at its most efficient. Enter supply chain optimization.

What is supply chain optimization?

An optimized supply chain allows for two essential business priorities:

Maximized efficiency: Doing more with less

Your supply chain must continuously meet demands for better products, faster results, and lower prices, while minimizing the cost, time, and labor associated with your operations.

Operational agility: Responding quickly to change

Your supply chain must be flexible and adaptable to overcome any disruption that lay ahead.

Features of an optimized supply chain

Visibility into processes and communicating with suppliers

A fully optimized supply chain means that people in your business have full end-to-end visibility into your operations, including the processes that sit in and around your supply chain. Depending on your business, this might look like tracking which team members are accountable for what tasks, when tasks are being completed, what inventory is in which warehouse location, and when and where materials are being delivered.

Connectivity between core systems

Complex operations call for complex technologies to support them. It’s likely that your business relies on a full tech stack to operate, from your ERP system to your inventory management software. Optimizing your entire supply chain network requires bringing together all components of your software ecosystem into a central hub.

Digitization of essential and unique processes

Optimized supply chains use technology to automate manual processes that formerly required hours of labor and were riddled with inputting errors. Digitizing the processes that your supply chain relies on to function and that are unique to your company allows you to re-invest resources saved into further innovation.

Optimize your supply chain with low-code

Low-code application development tools help increase efficiency and improve visibility into complex supply chain operations, allowing for companies to reinvest time and resources saved into further innovation.

This is what supply chain management optimization looks like with low-code:

• Eliminating manual processes to maximize efficiency of resource allocation
• Gaining end-to-end visibility into processes
• Obtaining real-time, actionable insights to quickly identify risks  
• Centralizing data by connecting disparate systems 
• Rapidly digitizing your business’s unique processes 

How Metso used Quickbase for their supply chain network optimization solution

Metso, a leading process performance provider in the oil and gas, mining, and aggregates industry, utilized Quickbase as supply chain optimization software to rapidly and dramatically improve the processes in and around their supply chain operations. They built a solution with low-code that included

• A suite of applications built on Quickbase for managing orders, engineering, and inventory 
• Data from ERP, inventory, and data warehouses updated regularly to Quickbase applications
• Easy creation, distribution, and management of action items to mitigate potential delays or issues 
• Custom reporting for tracking high-priority orders, inventory, and critical path issues 
• Automated time-critical Engineering Change Notices rather than manually 

Read more about how Metso reduced costs, boosted communications, and increased transparency to improve supply chain processes.

Fully optimized and agile: The supply chains of the future

The supply chains of the future are fully operationally agile and have fewer data silos. This will allow companies to transition operations quickly without sacrificing efficiency -- an ability that will be necessary to survive future disruption.

Companies who invest in supply chain optimization will have the competitive advantage of producing higher quality products in greater quantities and at lower costs and exceeding customer expectations, while also maintaining the flexibility to shift operations in the face of a crisis. Companies who don’t will fall behind.

Run your optimal supply chain on Quickbase

Use your data to unlock operational agility

Quickbase pulls the data that’s spread across your business into one central hub. Uncover real-time, actionable insights across systems to eliminate data silos and drive operational agility.

Maximize efficiency to save time and money

Rapidly develop business applications that digitize the day-to-day processes your supply chain relies on to operate. In just a matter of days, citizen developers in your company can replace dozens of manual and time-consuming processes so your teams can focus on innovation.

Build applications that scale alongside your operations

Be prepared for the future with technology that can support your supply chain’s unique processes. Quickbase applications are designed to be iterative, offering the flexibility to adapt to new workflows as your business needs scale.

Create a strategic plan with actionable insights

Access to centralized, real-time data allows your teams to identify and act on the information that your business needs most, minimizing future risk and increasing customer satisfaction.