Integrated supply chain: 360 control tower

What is a supply chain control tower?

The "control tower" or "control tower" is a cockpit where companies get an overview of their transportation and distribution processes. However, making your supply chain truly efficient and agile requires more than just visibility into your logistics processes. Thus the 360 supply chain control tower was born: a combination of technology, processes and people that monitor and manage all links of a supply chain, from sourcing, procurement, planning and production to sales and finance.

The 360 control tower combines data from a mass of internal sources, across departments and sites, with data from the external ecosystem: suppliers, logistics providers, customers, etc. By consistently visualizing that data, smartly connecting it and identifying patterns, a control tower provides an integrated view as well as smart insights.

A 360 supply chain control tower is a combination of technology, processes, organization and people that monitors and manages all links of a supply chain.

A full-blown control tower: your benefits

With a centralized view of your entire supply chain, you win in all areas:

• Plan better and work more efficiently: Putting out local fires is a thing of the past. You have an exact view of the status of raw materials, components, orders and products, so you can plan perfectly. And because you detect stumbling blocks immediately, you take action on time.

• Work proactively, no longer reactively: The spreadsheets your team traditionally works with cast a glance at the past. Useful, but not enough to stay competitive in today's complex marketplace. A control tower provides smart analysis and recommendations, as the basis for better decisions.

• Save costs: Using your people, machines and transport more efficiently, estimating the exact materials you need or optimizing your stock: a control tower helps you reduce your costs in many ways. Moreover, you gain insight into your cash flows, so you can optimize those as well.

• Support your employees: Smart insights, timely alerts and concrete proposals for smart actions make it easier for employees to realize their (personal) goals.

• Increase your customer satisfaction. Correct, on-time deliveries and invoicing, quick answers to questions, proactive notifications and better product quality guarantee satisfied customers.

How do you build a 360 control tower?

You don't build and implement a control tower with a big bang. You can start small, with one specific process or flow and scale step by step: you add processes, products, services, suppliers or customers at your pace. Each control tower project is therefore largely customized. Our approach consists of the following building blocks:

1. Assessment: In a number of workshops we examine the existing supply chain processes and flows, together with your team. We map your needs, identify use cases and KPI's and determine which technology and features are needed.

2. Visual design sprint: No insight without clear data visualization. That is why every control tower project starts with a visual design sprint, in which we identify your visualization needs and translate them into a model that fits your organization.

3. Data quality under the microscope: The quality and reliability of your master data is crucial to arrive at correct insights and analyses. If necessary, we support you to improve and manage data quality.

4. An integrated backbone: Do all backend systems work seamlessly together and interface with your suppliers' and customers' systems? If silos stand in the way of an end-to-end control tower, our experts can create a composable backend to ensure smooth collaboration - between IT systems and your entire ecosystem.

5. From solid architecture to governance: Do you have the right IT infrastructure, software and systems to support your control tower? Are they set up and managed correctly? We offer advice and a roadmap.

6. Implementation, including change management. A control tower is so much more than a dashboard. Your supply chain also involves people. We roll out your control tower and ensure sufficient support.

Why Ordina?

We know the theory. But just as much the practice.
Our experts know the supply chain world inside and out. We are aware of the regulations, we are technology experts, but we know just as well that supply chain is also about people. And that it involves complex ecosystems. By combining our theoretical knowledge with our practical - feet-in-the-mud - experience, we understand your challenges perfectly. This is how we arrive at feasible yet smart solutions.

Expertise in various domains
From supply chain optimization, IoT, RPA, data visualization and IT architecture to security: our high performance teams combine all the knowledge and experience from different business units to work out the best solution.

Local player offering continuity
Ordina is always nearby. At the same time, we are big enough to support your complex processes and ensure flexibility and continuity. Our ambition: to be a long-term partner you can build on.