The Benefit of Process Modeling in IBP
Gain the Insights Necessary to Ensure Your Process Tasks Proceed on Schedule
By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2
Process management in IBP helps you manage and track your supply chain processes and enables collaboration throughout the organization. Breaking down those barriers to communication and information introduces new levels of efficiency that improves response time throughout your supply chain.
Most operational processes are cyclical and reoccur on either daily, weekly, or monthly patterns. But many steps in the process often have dependencies that require one or more previous step to be completed before advancing. In large organizations, tracking progress of these linear tasks requires constant real-time communication so that the subsequent activities can occur as quickly as possible, eliminating lag between steps in the process.
Consider a process like demand planning which begins each week with the collection of new order data and ends with a forecast sent to supply planning. Throughout the week, many planning activities occur which are handled by multiple planners throughout the organization. As an example, a weekly demand process could following the flow outlined here, with several high level steps that are critical to the entire routine.
Each major step of this weekly process requires other activities to be completed by multiple different planners. For example, within the ‘Data Gathering and Cleaning; step, the following activities must be completed.
Let’s say that statistical forecasting is a background step set to occur on Tuesday night. When all the previous steps and activities are completed by all the planners involved, only then can the background job begin. Similarly, at the end of the weekly process when all the demand planning steps are completed, a background job that releases the forecast to inventory and supply planning can automatically engage. If any planner or previous step is not completed, then the background statistical forecasting job or forecast release script cannot occur, and the entire process is set back.
Why is process modeling in IBP beneficial?
- Helps you define the process steps within your supply chain.
- Assigns tasks and responsibilities to planners within the organization.
- Allows each planner to track their own progress within the process.
- Provides regional and national visibility to process progress.
- Provides automation by triggering background jobs once dependent tasks are fully completed.
- Once defined, a process template can be scheduled and set to occur cyclically (i.e. daily, weekly, monthly).
- Can be included in a dashboard so planners and leadership can easily visualize process status.
Do you have all the necessary insight over your processes to ensure each step can proceed on schedule? If you think your organization can benefit from a transition to IBP, SCMO2 can help you get up and running in as little as 12 weeks. Ask us how we can help.
