Supply Chain Management (SCM) can be complicated. From balancing purchasing and sales to managing hundreds of thousands of parts and SKUs to forecasting and planning, there are many moving parts to consider. With its multitude of processes that often are compounded and hinge on one another, supply chain manufacturing has plenty of opportunities to benefit from intelligent automation.
Today we take a look at one intelligent automation use case for supply chain management, and discuss how automation can improve how manufacturers get work done.
Intelligent Automation Use Case in Supply Chain Manufacturing
Because manufacturers are dealing in storage, sale and shipment of physical goods, forecasting is a critical spoke of supply chain management. Properly managing demand for products and services can be the difference in profit and loss. With good forecasting and robust data, supply chain manufacturers can do a better job of knowing what to have on hand, and what can be expected to sell and when.
The good news for most suppliers is that there is a great deal of data that is available, and most of it isn’t being put to use. That’s where automation comes in.
- Robotic process automation (RPA) and other automation technologies can be used to create a baseline of forecasts for products and services by systematically pulling historical data.
- From here, it can hand it off to another RPA program that can create a consensus forecast — an averaged estimate using the historical data. With the consensus in hand, you can then compare this with a financial budget and produce analytics that identify gaps between the forecast and budget.
- RPA can also be used to monitor activities against the forecast, and update it if needed, creating a constant loop of forecasting, adjustment and improvement.
- Along the way, intelligent automation can also be used to measure accuracy in forecasting, and to identify preferable process variants. With EZFlow, the platform will automatically identify trends, and can tell you which variants of a given process produce the most favorable outputs.
- Automation can also help us keep our finger on the pulse within the marketplace, analyzing market trends, competition in the market and their significance to historical data.
Benefits of Intelligent Automation in Supply Chain Manufacturing
Automation helps with improved compliance and risk reduction.
Regulation is a fact of life and automation ensures you’re always prepared in the event of an audit. With EZFlow, every step in every process can be recorded for you, along with variants and ongoing recommendations for improvement. This feature is particularly useful in the event you need to show a credible audit trail. It also simplifies risk management for teams in the midst of complicated regulatory changes.
Process automation improves visibility.
End-to-end visibility is more than just a neat description. EZFlow helps you understand what’s happening at every single step of every single process, across your entire supply chain. Not only that, it also automatically flags bottlenecks and helps you make smart, data-backed decisions for improving workflow—end to end.
RPA and intelligent automation boost collaboration.
With new and improved visibility into your processes and highly functional persona-based dashboards, EZFlow streamlines project coordination and drives efficient collaboration—all with a single pane view for simplified management.
Whether you’ve already begun running automations, or are looking for support on how to get started, the team at EPSoft is here to help. Our intelligent automation platform can help improve planning and forecasting, inventory management, service orchestration and so much more. To talk more about how EZFlow and intelligent automation can improve your business, schedule a free demo today.