▲ Team and role structure for supply chain operations
Ordering, Shipping and Inventory Control, it’s very common these are separate roles within small-medium companies.
When the business was newly created, the duties may be carried out by 1-2 people.
With the development, the workload seems to justify the split of the roles. More, the areas do have their own focuses and knowledge requirements.
Such structure continues for 3, 5, 10, or 20 years…
When the business is getting busier, recruiting more ordering, more shipping staff and so on seems to be the way to arrange.
The result is, the structure continues still. More labour costs are included into the overhead, offsetting the company profits, permanently.
🤔 How about we solve the situation in an alternative way?
🪴 How about we get the supply chain operations re-examined and optimised?
Supply chain management as many people know nowadays is not as straightforward as it looks.
With time, which processes are really the ones leading to effective results? Which ones are just the results of incorrect communications/ collaboration setups?
▫️When to arrange ordering? with who? And how?
▫️When to arrange shipping? with who? And how?
▫️What to store and not to store? How to adjust?
▫️What are the results to the next areas of the supply chain arena?
▫️What are the impact to the S&OP?
▫️A lot of Whys to be answered too…
When there are many ineffective arrangements along the supply chain, on the surface, it justifies recruiting more people. The recruiting doesn't help the company to react effectively to external risks.
Rather, it lets the company continue to suffer from unnecessary costs, delays, the loss of competitive advantages, sometimes its sustainability at bad environmental fluctuations.
Team and role structure is only one area to be looked at, comes to supply chain optimisation.
⋅ All work together well, it supports the company financially, operationally as well as strategically;
⋅ All work together poorly, we know the results, with many live cases happening around us in the last couple of years.
For 2 companies that have a yearly import/export volume of around 700-1200 x 40’ containers, besides other supply chain improvements, we turned Ordering+ Shipping + Inventory Control into a 0.7 full-time role.
The companies could allocate people to develop and pick up merchandising and quality assurance to make the overall supply chain stronger.
Supply chain optimisation service we provide is not of permanent cost to the companies.
Yet, we support companies to enjoy long-term benefits from healthy supply chain operations for strong development into the future.
Hoping to consider alternative perspectives on your company’s supply chain?
Let’s chat.
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