Basic Concept of Supply Chain Information Management

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Information Management

With the continuous development of e-commerce, whether an enterprise can accurately and timely access to information and timely response to information is the core issue that determines the competitiveness of an enterprise. Do you know anything about supply chain information management? What are the concepts of supply chain information management? Let's take a look!

First, the connotation of supply chain information management

(a) the concept of supply chain information management

Information is critical to the operation of the supply chain because it provides the factual basis on which supply chain managers rely to make decisions. Without information, decision makers would not be able to understand customer needs, inventory levels, and when more products should be produced and shipped. In short, without information, decision makers can only make decisions blindly, and the supply chain cannot deliver products to customers efficiently. With information, on the other hand, decision makers can make scientific decisions to improve the operations of the company and the entire supply chain. In this sense, information is the most important management element of a supply chain. A complete supply chain consists of a core node enterprise, a supplier that supplies goods to the core enterprise, and a downstream unit that underwrites or ultimately uses the product.

In the supply chain management environment, information flow is widely existed in each link in the supply chain, and realize **** enjoyment between different node enterprises, in order to coordinate and ensure the effective operation of the supply chain. On this basis, supply chain information management can be defined as: supply chain information management is through the supply chain in the information system, to realize the supply chain data processing, information processing, knowledge processing process, so that the data to information transformation, information to knowledge transformation, and ultimately the formation of enterprise value.

(B) The characteristics of supply chain information management

In the supply chain, information management has the following characteristics:

1. Diversified sources of supply chain information. Supply chain information includes all kinds of information from internal enterprises, but also includes all kinds of information from participating enterprises in the supply chain. The competitive advantage of enterprises to obtain the need for coordination and cooperation between the participating enterprises in the supply chain, one of the means of coordination and cooperation is the timely exchange of information and **** enjoy.

2, the supply chain information. Logistics information with the logistics activities and commodity trading activities and a large number of occurrences. Multi-species, less mass production and multi-frequency, small number of distribution so that the inventory, transportation and other logistics activities of the information increased substantially. Retailers widely use the POS system to read instant sales information such as product variety, price, quantity, etc. at the point of sale, and process and organize this sales information and transmit it to related enterprises through EDI. With the increase in the tendency of cooperation between enterprises and the development of information technology, the amount of information on logistics information will be increasingly large in the future.

3, the wide range of supply chain information. Supply chain environment information from the supply chain of participating enterprises, the source of information, processing and transmission across different departments and enterprises. Supply chain information management pays full attention to the decision-making at all levels of the supply chain, providing information from the grass-roots operations department to the management to the decision-making level to pass the channel, improve the efficiency of information transfer.

4, supply chain information is updated quickly. In the supply chain management environment, the information generated in all aspects of the operation. Multi-species and low-volume production, multi-frequency and small-quantity distribution and other modes of operation are widely used, requiring continuous updating of supply chain information, and the speed of updating is getting faster and faster.

5, supply chain information emphasizes customer service. In the supply chain, suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and customers have information exchanges, reflecting the characteristics of providing customers with extremely personalized service.

The Importance of Supply Chain Information Management

Information is the key to the success of the supply chain, because having more and more effective information enables managers to be more effective in decision-making. Successful supply chain management is based on the entire chain, considering and making decisions about the supply chain as a whole, not just one stage. Through the collection, processing, transmission and application of supply chain information, it is possible for supply chain managers to make strategic decisions based on the entire supply chain, considering all the factors affecting the entire supply chain, making the overall supply chain operation more efficient and enhancing the decision-making of a node or a specific function of the supply chain. Based on the integrated management and decision-making of the supply chain, the overall operational efficiency of the supply chain is improved, the profitability of the supply chain is enhanced, and the node enterprises of the supply chain are also benefited in the process. The object information of supply chain information management can be divided into the following parts, and this categorization corresponds to different stages in the supply chain.

(a) Supply source information. What products can be purchased in how long the ordering period, at what price. Where the product can be delivered, order status, changes, and payment arrangements.

(ii) production information. What kind of products can be produced, how much, in which factories for production, how long the delivery period, what trade-offs need to be made, how much the cost, how large the batch order size.

(C) distribution and sales information. What goods need to be shipped to where, in what quantities, by what means, at what price, what is the inventory at each location, and how long is the delivery period.

(iv) demand information. What goods are going to be purchased, where they are going to be purchased, in what quantities, at what prices etc.

Supply chain managers use this information to make a variety of important decisions about the supply chain. Setting inventory levels requires downstream information from customers, information from available suppliers, and information about existing inventory levels, costs, and benefits. Transportation strategy development requires information about customers, suppliers, routes, costs, times, and quantities to be transported. Information. Facility decisions require information about both supply and demand, as well as information about capacity, revenues, and costs within the supplier.

Useful information for making supply chain decisions has the following characteristics:

1. The information must be correct. For information that does not describe the true state of the supply chain. It will be difficult for us to make scientific decisions. This is not to require that all information is 100 percent correct, but requires that all the information obtained to describe the facts at least no directional error.

2. Information must be exactly what is needed. Accurate information often exists, but it is either outdated, or not outdated, but in a form that is not applicable. To make scientific decisions, managers need information that is timely and available.

3. Information needs to be just what is needed. Decision makers need information they can use. Often there is a lot of information that is not relevant to the organization, so it is important to consider what information should be retained so that valuable resources are not wasted on collecting useless data.

In summary, decision makers can make more effective decisions about the supply chain when they have good information that gives them supply chain-based decision making capabilities. The nodes of the supply chain should make decisions in line with the ? Hedgehog theory? , both in the case of not affecting the overall development trend, adhere to their own principles, constantly push forward, and through a series of management methods and management tools to make the supply chain to adapt to the needs of the supply chain and be able to achieve the supply chain and the interests of the enterprise to maximize the double management process. Therefore, information management is the key to the success of the supply chain.

The role of supply chain information management

Information and information management is not only a key element of each stage of the supply chain, but also a key factor in decision-making at each stage of the supply chain - from the strategy development stage to the planning and operation stage. For example, information and information analysis play a pivotal role in the formation of supply chain strategy, such as what products should be produced in the nearest production cycle. Managers must understand how to analyze information to make scientific decisions. A variety of decision-making problems in the supply chain require the support of effective information management based on information acquisition to achieve optimization of supply chain decision-making and coordination of supply chain operations. For example:

(i) Inventory decision. The selection of the optimal inventory strategy requires the acquisition of a large amount of information and the processing of the information to obtain the main information related to the decision, such as the type of demand, inventory cost structure, ordering costs and so on. Carrefour collects detailed demand, cost, and supplier information, etc. to develop its inventory strategy.

(ii) Transportation decisions. Transportation decisions in a supply chain environment are influenced by a variety of factors, such as transportation networks, routes, mode selection and costs, customer distribution, and product size information. Carrefour uses information management to obtain a high degree of consistency in its actions with suppliers. This consistency allows its multiple transportation links to achieve docking to achieve the purpose of saving inventory and transportation costs.

(C) facility location decision. The location of facilities requires a comprehensive measure of information related to supply chain efficiency and flexibility, as well as other influencing factors such as demand and exchange rates. Carrefour's suppliers arrange production based on the demand information provided by Carrefour, and use the demand information to layout new stores and dock goods.

In the supply chain decision-making process, a large amount of information is needed as support, and effective information management is needed to realize the effectiveness of decision-making. Through the supply chain information management can coordinate the operation of the supply chain node enterprise, realize the visualization of the supply chain management process.