Advantages of a digital supply chain include seeking to lower operating costs, improving product quality and with increasing visibility upstream. With downstream, benefits can include boosting sales effectiveness, plus generating new business development opportunities and also with creating strategic advantages. Overall benefits include the ability to create data-driven plans through data visualization and also with promoting collaboration between teams.
For instance, research undertaken by The Boston Consulting Group indicated that digital supply chain management can lead to better product availability (of up to 10 percent), together with around a 25 percent faster response time to changes in market demand, plus a 30 percent improved realization of working-capital reductions.
As an example of utilizing such technology to foster digital supply chain solutions, the company Dairy.com has announced the acquisition of a platform called Orbis MES, which relates to manufacturing execution systems for the food and beverage industry. This fits in with Dairy.com’s remit of providing software solutions to deliver improved visibility, efficiency, and traceability across the value chain.
Commenting on this move, Dairy.com CEO Scott Sexton says: “The Orbis MES application suite provides dairy, food, and beverage plants the ability to manage operations in real-time, from anywhere. It is exceptional software that tracks a liquid product’s complicated journey from plant intake to finished products.” This will function as a software-as-a-service solution.
Outlining the advantages, he explains: “Companies can prevent product loss, evaluate operating performance, improve quality, trace product flows, and monitor utilities consumption.”
Through such technology, Sexton adds: that “plants are looking to maximize efficiency, food safety, and sustainability while minimizing shrink, waste, and losses. With this acquisition, Dairy.com continues to lead the way to a truly integrated and connected supply chain.”
