Most organizations deal with the shipment of goods in to and out of their premises. With the increasing demand for a better customer experience it is a challenge to provide a high level of customer service when parts of your supply chain fall somewhat out of your “sphere of influence”. Sure, through contractual obligations, you can try and force your suppliers and carriers to behave in a certain way but as the old saying goes “stuff happens!”. If the supply chain breaks down outside of your 4 walls, are you aware of it? Do you have enough time between when you find out about the issue and the time needed to correct it? Do these issues in the supply chain cause disruption and potentially lead to lost customers and sales?
The key to remedying this issue was discussed back in the 1990’s and was termed Supply Chain Event Management – Give me the ability to monitor the events occurring THROUGHOUT my supply chain as and when they occur – Let me measure these events against what I had expected to occur and if it differs in any way let me know so that I can take proactive measures to correct it.SAP was a part of the “think tank” that came up with the term “Supply Chain Event Management” and created the product SAP Event Management to provide us with this functionality. It went in to General Availability in 2004 so has been around rather a long time…
In this article I want to describe how SAP Event Management forms the back-bone of your Track and Trace requirements and specifically focus on the outbound logistics scenario.
Firstly let me describe what Track and Trace is and how it relates to my issue described above.
Firstly let me describe what Track and Trace is and how it relates to my issue described above.