Everything in the supply chain starts with an order, which can be of two types - inbound and outbound. Inbound requests deal with receiving goods into the chain and outbound deals with distributing products to the end consumers. Orders can also pertain to movement of goods within the supply chain to optimize inventory and meet business demands occurring from time-to-time. Stocks transfer or warehouse movements to and from central distribution center and regional distribution center movement are the examples. Some of the significant KPIs measured as part of this function are:
- Order visibility
- CDC/RDC stock aging
- Order fulfillment TAT
- Order tracking
- Open orders management
- GRN exception tracking
There are two types of warehouses - dry warehouses and cold stores. The goods are stored in ambient temperature in dry warehouses, whereas the perishable goods need to be maintained within a particular temperature range to ensure product freshness. The latter is called the cold store. Another classification applicable could be based on operations, such as manual, semi-automatic, and fully automatic. A warehouse is a crucial element in any supply chain. It is not only a place for storage of goods, but also a place where much value adding activities take place such as knitting, assembly, and repairs. These activities depend on the type of industry and goods moving in the chain. Optimization in a warehouse involves space, assets, and resources.
Analytics plays a vital role in helping warehouse operators understand the undercurrent and take necessary corrective actions in real-time to ensure maximum throughput in an optimized cost structure. Also, S&OP—supply and operational planning—depends a lot on the inventory and warehouse management. This process allows businesses to plan strategies around the organizational resources to serve their customers while staying profitable.
Some of the KPI that you can analyze under this function are:
- RDC stock movement
- RDC/CDC pending GRN
- Order fulfillment rate
- Return orders analysis
- Asset utilization
- Pick and put efficiency
- Cycle counting and inventory analysis
- Space utilization
- Billing efficiency and contract management
- Incident analysis
- Warehouse cost management
Transportation provides the last mile link in the supply chain. It can be broadly classified as long-haul and secondary distribution, within which, dry and temperature-controlled storages fall. Long-haul distribution deals with the movement of goods from one city to the other, involving large trucks moving up to full capacity of loads of products either from a single customer or via modes of consolidation. Other distribution deals with milk runs within a particular city for distribution of goods, which is also the true last mile link within the transportation space. This function needs precise yield management like yield per trip or km. Transportation is a high CapEx and OpEx function and hence needs to be managed effectively to ensure maximum ROI is achieved through each asset. Some of the KPIs for this function include:
- Cross-docking pending stock
- Revenue analysis by various dimensions
- FTL/LTL revenue analysis
- Weight loss analysis
- Event analysis using GPS feed
- Driver/vehicle performance analysis
- Empty run/return goods analysis
- Repair and maintenance analysis
- In-transit temperature monitoring and analysis
Logistics management deals with the physical flows of goods through the supply chain, both at the inbound and outbound side. This function deals with multiple vendors who are required for the execution of the transaction, for example, liners, airlines, freight forwarders, NVOCC, CHA, etc., who are necessary for moving goods from origin to destination across international borders. A standard metric used in this function is the total landing cost metric, which determines the best route for moving goods between two points considering all cost incurred in the process of delivery. Yield per ton is also a common yield management KPI. Network and route optimizations are also standard methods used within this function for increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Some of the other KPI’s covered in this function include:
- Month wise inbound goods value and weight
- HWL cost breakup
- Inbound good value by channel
- Month-wise outbound goods value and weight
- Outbound goods value by channel
- SLA breach
- Load commitment/contract management
- Trade lane performance
Customer service is one of the key links in ensuring that the on-boarded customers are retained for
longer periods so as to obtain repeat orders. Customer service divisions cater to key services such as
Shipment Documentation, Consignment status tracking, Priority shipment assistance, etc.
Effectiveness of the customer service division can be tracked by monitoring key operational metrics
such as
- SI / SWB Documentation TAT Performance
- # of Documents processed within TAT / Out of TAT
- Draft Corrections received & DC TAT performance
- SI / SWB Documentation Errors based on Error categories
- Correlation of Material Safety norms to SI / SWB Documentation errors
- Shipping documents processed per executive
- Document error patterns by Team / Shift / Documentation Executive
- Invoice Accuracy %
- # of Customer escalations & Resolution TAT
