Manufacturing Sector and the importance of applying BPM in the supply chain.

The manufacturing industry is one sector that is very process dependant and relies heavily on an efficient and responsive supply chain for business success. In order to remain competitive, manufacturing companies need to set strategic goals, track progress, marshal scattered data and most importantly narrow the supply chain pipeline to perform within set parameters.

Re-engineering business processes for optimised process execution will have significant impact on the supply chain for quick communications with suppliers and shorter manufacturing cycles.

Business Challenges

• Greater agility, innovation and partnerships: In order for manufacturing companies to be successful today, emphasis needs to be placed on bringing together outsourced elements that provide a cost or value advantage to the firm. Past initiatives that considered only those business processes directly within a firm’s control now need to consider issues related to outsourcing for greater business agility.

• Increased visibility and better collaboration with suppliers: With businesses becoming more global, manufacturing companies need to tie-in multiple vendors from different geographies and time zones for event monitoring at every step of the supply chain process and for back-to-back vendor communication.

• Data availability for best procurement practices: With profit margins becoming narrower, manufacturing companies are increasingly looking inward at their procurement practices to trim costs. Companies need to adhere to the new business agility standard in every sphere of their operations especially their supply chain.

The BPM Opportunity

Managing the supply chain process to streamline product and service flow, data and information flow and funds flow between various items in the supply chain structure is vital to business success. Re-engineering business processes and applying BPM provide multiple opportunities for increased organizational efficiency through:

• Reduced delays in materials supply
• Meeting of shared goals and deliverables across the supply chain
• Better relationship management and speed of communication with suppliers
• Intelligent vendor data to procurement teams for reliable outsourcing decisions
• Activity monitoring for quick reactions to issues
• Better ROI on existing IT investments through integration with a BPM tool

Skelta Benefits

• SOA: Skelta BPM’s Service Oriented Architecture allows companies take a practical approach to optimising internal processes associated with key business applications such as supply chain management.

• KPI: Allows defining of KPI’s for a company’s supply chain and provides a method to evaluate its success in reacting to demand variability, speed of order processing and other standards against industry benchmarks for improving efficiencies in these areas.

• Workflow Automation: Skelta BPM’s strong workflow capabilities allow companies to correct process inefficiencies through automation. Skelta’s workflow engine supports information routing across multiple structures for approvals and task completion, and queues for workload balancing and rapid approvals especially for key business activities.

• Business Rules: A business rules driven engine also allows specific tasks to be allocated to certain users or groups for smooth and effective process workflows.

• BAM: Skelta’s powerful BAM (Business Analysis Monitoring) tool provides updates and reports on key organizational processes through a graphical interface for proactive management decisions. Managers can not only access audit trails for the process but can also remain appraised of state of execution of process.