No this blog entry is not going to be a behavioral reminder from your pre-school teachers…rather this is about how the supply chain software market continues to change, specifically for DSD users. Long gone are the days where features and functionality were the key factors to any software purchase decision. It is true that without solid functionality and key market features software will quickly drop off the desirable list, but these two points are merely the first gauntlet to pass towards a positive decision regarding software selection.
Today, being able to provide “out of the box” integration options, tool kits and breadth of product solutions are more important than ever in the DSD world. A next generation RAS is great, but what else comes with it? Does it provide a flexible mobile sales solution? What about your inventory and truck loading solutions? Traditional (aka Green Screen style) RAS solutions have been able to provide batch data entry for inventory, and load sheets for your picking team but does this technology really cut it in today’s world? That covers some of the basic points of entry of data into your system…but what are you going to do with it once you have it there? Do you have a robust report generation solution? Even better than that, how about a data mining tool with not only canned reports, but also an easy interface where users can define their own “custom” queries to identify the exact data elements you want and need for executive dashboards?
Beyond what I would consider fairly “standard” offerings listed above, many operations are running back end ERP software solutions as well. Being able to provide reproducible integrations to these solutions is quickly becoming as important as the software solution itself. Software users today have existing structure and systems that are not going away, and any future solutions must integrate easily and seamlessly in order to maximize benefit of your DSD solution. This is one area where most companies want to avoid being on the “bleeding edge” of technology, and would really prefer to see an offering that can reference others.
Another reason to consider integration options is as simply as taking advantage of the strength of other solutions. Leveraging the functionality of other solutions not only provides the users benefit, but can do so in a more cost effective manner (if done properly) than building additional modules outside of your core competencies. This may be a difficult decision for some to make, but I think that this is an area that can definitely be used to your advantage if properly evaluated.
I will end this post with the following question…can you really only consider one component to your DSD solution in isolation, or will you look at the end to end integration of all components?
In true fashion, the technology industries have taken all of the meaning out of seemingly descriptive terms such as business intelligence (BI), web-portals and virtually all other terms currently used for non-paper based reporting. Almost every business owner or manager that I know runs their business off of one or two key reports or metrics. If the systems they are buying can provide or simplify the process of getting that information, then the chances of the investment being made are greatly amplified. However, more and more we are seeing a departure from flat file paper type report formats.
We live in an active world. People want to be alerted when critical things happen; they don’t have the time or the patience to go looking. Tomorrow’s applications need to take an active approach to all reporting functions ranging from simple invoicing through crucial activities. I have spoken about some of these in previous posts.
· Don’t print invoices at the point of delivery. Have them delivered electronically to the proper recipients. No paper is lost, it provides an audit trail and it improves the speed of payment. The car rental companies are doing this today; I get my receipt before I leave the rental compound. Imagine doing this in the DSD environment.
· Send email alerts to managers, clients and suppliers on critical events. The airlines do this today when your plane is running late. Dynamic scheduling and dispatch holds the same promise in delivery environments.
· Dashboards, business intelligence etc … single screen views of what is going on in the work environment that clearly mark problems and allow you to drill down on them. Here is the next key: people don’t work at their desks anymore. We need to get that data onto the Blackberry, iPhone and Android devices being carried by mobile users.
· Send alerts and advisories to text message or messenger sites … make it real time, active and actionable.
My generation lives in an e-mail world. Even that is quickly going away and being replaced with TXT and Messenger environments. The key to remaining relevant in a real-time word is getting critical point information in front of the right people as it happens. Dealing with the constant barrage of information will be the next problem. However, today we have to deal with the fact that no one can or will be bothered to run a report or print the paper. If business decision makers run their businesses based on a single report today, what does the next generation of data factor look like? We use paper due to lack of a viable alternative. Today, those alternatives exist and our addictions to paper are being replaced with a more potent and enrapturing electronic alternative. Our kids are already there; that means that business needs to catch up.
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One of the top reasons people buy HighJump systems is because HighJump applications are designed to easily adapt to the way you do business - not force you to twist your business processes to fit the software. The adaptability promise continues with HighJump's new business intelligence application - HighJump Performance Advantage.
In a nutshell, HighJump Performance Advantage allows supply chain customers to view summary-level operational data in the form of graphical dashboards, and then drill down to root cause in order to correct any problems. Over time, this ability can lead to significant process improvement in a warehouse/DC or manufacturing shop floor.
It's easy to create personalized dashboards to suit your own operation. And you can set up dashboards for every user persona in your operation. Ex: an outbound dashboard for your shipping manager, an inbound dashboard for your receiving manager, and a capacity and utilization dashboard for an exec or warehouse manager.
Pretty cool stuff, but also very practical usage for HighJump customers interested in supply chain improvement and a way to give access to business performance metrics - and a route to operational improvement - to all members of the team.
Check out sample dashboards here:
www.highjump.com/performance_management
I’m enjoying my second cup of coffee while learning about HighJump’s product strategy in our second day’s opening session at Innovation 2009. Sitting at my table with me are HighJump customers from the consumer goods, manufacturing and wine and spirits industries. Quite a representation!
HighJump’s Vice President of Product Strategy, Chad Collins, explains that HighJump plans to continue with the expansion of direct store delivery footprint into other geographies (HighJump is already the largest provider of DSD technology in North America), and deepen manufacturing execution and transportation capabilities.
As we get deeper into the presentation, we’re getting live demonstrations of some of HighJump’s most impressive new product offerings, including:
- HighJump Performance Advantage – HighJump’s new business intelligence dashboarding solution for supply chain products that provides quick visual representation of key operational data/metrics
- HighJump RouteCenter – HighJump’s go-forward route accounting system for the beverage industry has some pretty sophisticated drilldown, search and adaptability capabilities and many customers are already converting from older systems onto this modern platform.
- GPS – HighJump’s DSD customers get more than just dots moving around a screen. This new real-time tool is great for any companies operating in a dynamic sales environment and creates staff coaching opptys and helps with fuel consumption – it’s already being used in the rendering and dairy DSD industries
- HighJump Supply Chain Advantage 11.0 – our newest release is coming later this year and includes some pretty cool cloud computing and interoperability capabilities. Stay tuned!
- Unique upgrade process - HighJump's upgrades stand apart from our competitors in that our customers can choose to include only the workflows they need when they upgrade, and keep existing configurations! See how it works at www.highjump.com/easy_upgrade
I'm highly caffeinated and ready to hit my first product session!
Today, HighJump Software announced the release of HighJump Performance Advantage, a business intelligence dashboard specifically designed to enable supply chain process improvement. The solution combines modern graphical dashboard technology with industry-developed standards to produce actionable visual data for executives and management.
For more information, read the press release or visit the HighJump Performance Advantage page on our website.
My purple people eaters rolled the dice last week and came to terms with future HOF quarterback Brett Favre. While I do take some issue with the way in which the Vikings organization handled the courtship, I cannot deny that I am more excited about this season’s prospects and that it clearly makes the Vikings a better football team.
Another reason I am excited is the official release of HighJump’s Performance Advantage! HighJump Performance Advantage is our supply chain dashboard visibility product. We have incorporated over 30 industry recognized best practice metrics with the capability for people to build their own dashboards with company specific metrics. This is an important step in executing on HighJump’s business intelligence vision and offering more actionable data to our customers. Below is a sneak peak at one of the dashboards.
I look forward to discussing this new product with customers just as I and the rest of Minnesota hopes the Viking’s dice don’t show seven at the end of the season.
There are hundreds of metrics that you could use to manage your supply chain, but what are the right ones for your company? When deciding what metrics to use, it is important that you take a step back and look at your corporate strategy and corresponding corporate metrics. To select metrics for your WMS solutions or supplier enablement in a vacuum would be a common mistake. While it is quite likely the metrics you select will be valid, it is also likely they won’t help the company advance its corporate strategy.
The need for company specific metrics is apparent after looking at two different retailers. As we all know Wal-Mart has invested heavily to develop a world class supply chain. They attempt to optimize every facet of the supply chain in attempt to bring the lowest price to the consumer. They have been pioneers in supply chain innovation as evidenced by their previous RFID project and now their product sustainability initiative. The majority of Wal-Mart’s supply chain metrics should measure cost reduction/cost containment. Successful results in these metrics reinforce Wal-Mart’s corporate goal of providing the lowest competitive pricing to their customers.
In sharp contrast to this is Zara, a European fashion retailer. Zara strives to have their fingers on the pulse of what trends/fashion are selling well in a given locale and then design, manufacture, and deliver to the stores in time to take advantage of the current market trends. For Zara’s supply chain, speed and time-to-market are paramount. In many instances they might be willing to go with a higher cost option if it means they can capitalize on a current market trend. The supply chain best practices that Zara uses are likely to be very different than Wal-Mart’s and the corresponding metrics should be different as well.
When deploying new metrics, significant time and investment are potentially needed to capture the data, develop effective dashboards, and communicate metric goals to the team. Hopefully the above illustrates the importance of taking time to analyze your corporate strategy and validating that your supply chain metrics and incentives positively reinforce the company goals.
At HighJump Software we are working on a new performance dashboard for our WMS Warehouse Management System. This is a very exciting project which will allow customers to view key metrics throughout their distribution center operations. While ensuring the dashboards are esthetically pleasing is a key element of the process, the more important part is determining what are the right metrics to include in each dashboard. In addition to relying on industry associations such as the Supply Chain Council and the Warehousing Education and Research Council, we evaluate potential metrics according to the “SMART” criteria:
S – Specific
Is the metric detailed enough to be meaningful? A metric like ‘Outbound Order Progress’ sounds interesting, but probably lacks the specificity to be useful. Metrics like order pick accuracy or number of cases shipped are more specific and tangible.
M – Measurable
There are a lot of interesting metrics, especially in supply chain, but many companies do not have the data to actually measure the metric. Total landed cost is one that comes to mind as challenging for many companies. Before selecting a set of metrics, make sure you validate your supply chain management software solutions have the data needed to calculate the metric.
A – Actionable
If the user looks at a metric and finds it interesting but is unable to take action to improve the metric, then it will not be very useful. When a metric falls below a goal or a certain tolerance, the user of the metric should be able to determine the root cause and take corrective action to improve the metric.
R- Relevant
The metric has to be relevant to the user. It would not be relevant to display outbound order metrics to the inbound receiving manager. This is why it is important to have multiple dashboards so that only relevant metrics are presented to the user. While there will be some overlapping metrics between the DC manager dashboard and the customer dashboard, it is important that only metrics that are relevant are displayed to the targeted user.
T – Time Based
The metric perfect order fulfillment sounds like a good metric, but if I just said the value was 98% that would prompt a series of questions: for what time period, is it trending up or down, how it compares to last year at this time, etc. Metrics need to have a specific timeframe associated with them and depending on the metric that timeframe could be hours, days, weeks, months, etc.
Hopefully this is helpful when you evaluate what metrics to use in your supply chain operations. More to come as our dashboard product nears completion.
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