Arguing the Case for Supply Chain Resiliency in 2013

IDC MANUFACTURING IN SIGHTS OPINION
The pressure on manufacturing companies for supply chain speed, in the context of complexity and data overload, requires manufacturing supply chains to embrace resiliency and become “massively multidimensional.”

Manufacturing supply chains must prioritize flexibility and visibility if they are to adapt to a global marketplace that is evolving to be simultaneously volatile, personalized, and demanding of quality in product and service.

In addition:

• Supply chain responsiveness is a first principle, including improving forecast accuracy, certainly, but also driving for more flexible and agile factory networks and broader visibility into the supplier base.
• Mastering the massive multidimensionality that characterizes manufacturing supply chains requires collecting, understanding, and effectively acting upon the volumes of detailed data that confront manufacturers - thus the underpinning notion of "extreme granularity."
• Even though discussions of responsiveness and resiliency have tended to focus on the supply side, a proper treatment of resiliency recognizes that there are both supply - and demand-side issues.
• Resiliency is not just about proactive mitigation; it is also about reactive speed and how well a company responds to a situation - and is therefore better positioned to take advantage of limited alternatives.
• Many of the manufacturing companies IDC Manufacturing Insights spoke with are prioritizing risk and resiliency much more highly in 2013 than we have seen in the past 20 years; yet those same companies confess that it remains difficult to fully and financially detail the business case and justify the return on investment.