Towards a More Intelligent Supply Chain

We can anticipate predictive analytics to help create a more resilient supply chain in combination with a robust carrier portfolio that will enable prompt response to changes, allowing for better planning and forecasting.

—Guido Gries, Managing Director, Air & Sea Logistics Americas, Dachser

The past two years have driven change through every corner of business – from internal meetings to customer engagement.  Supply chain management is no exception.  In a normal year, according to Accenture research, supply chain disruptions can cause significant negative losses in terms of finances, logistics, and even reputation.  Normally, the top causes of disruption include unplanned IT outages, adverse weather, loss of talent, cyber-attacks and natural disasters.  During the “Black Swan” period of Covid, the impact and magnitude have been even greater.   According the IHL Group, in 2020, the retail sector experienced drastic global inventory distortion, with an estimated value for out-of-stock items of $1.14 trillion.

“The pandemic demonstrated to the world how important resiliency is in the supply chain. Supply chains are complex, global, and increasingly interconnected. When one part of the network is exposed to risk, the rest is vulnerable to disruption,” said Abe Eshkenazi, CEO of the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM).  “In 2021, companies in the supply chain will need to focus on resiliency, in conjunction with risk prevention, to mitigate adverse events faster than the competition, take market share, and outperform.

CDS has weathered the storm of the past two years and invested in more data-driven intelligence for its supply chain and logistics practice.   With the introduction of Nebula -- a predictive SaaS capability and extension of the Raytrix MVS platform – CDS has streamlined service planning, improved parts sparing accuracy, and guaranteed delivery quality around the globe. 

Streamlining Service Planning

When it comes to delivering on its customer SLAs, one of the critical components of multi-vendor services (MVS) is spare parts availability.  Unfortunately, ensuring the availability of the appropriate parts in the necessary locations requires a level of upfront effort on the part of the end user –gathering system logs and coordinating with a services manager.  This typically introduces delays into an on-boarding process and, in the event of missing logs, can introduce risk into the sparing strategy based on faulty assumptions.   

With Nebula, a system’s parts inventory – and sparing information -- is automatically generated through serial number lookups.  If logs are provided, they are automatically parsed and leveraged for additional sparing data.  Costly human error is eliminated and time-to-go-live is dramatically reduced. 

Improved Parts Sparing Accuracy

With data on 75,000+ parts across 1,700+ systems, growing monthly, Nebula’s detailed intelligence on parts, systems, across more than a dozen OEMs, combined with compatibility and functional equivalency information delivers effective sparing across the broadest array of enterprise systems in the industry.  When combined with 30 years of historical insights on parts, sparing, and issues, CDS can offer unmatched service for the most demanding enterprise data center environments.

Guaranteeing Delivery Quality, Around the Globe

Perhaps in no other organization is “the world is flat” more meaningful than in Logistics.  CDS has been delivering world-class support to global enterprises for decades.  Today, with forward stocking locations in 84 countries, and customers supported in every corner of the earth, CDS’s supply chain is truly global.  And the flow of parts is steady, with over 2,200 parts moved through forward stocking locations monthly.

Summary

As the quote that began this article indicated, predictive intelligence is the key to a more resilient and robust supply chain.  With Nebula, CDS has taken that step to streamline every stage of the customer lifecycle – from improved on-boarding, to ensuring the right parts are in the right place to deliver on support SLAs.

More Information

Forbes article on Nebula

Read more about Nebula

View the Nebula Infographic

Read more about CDS Global Supply Chain and Logistics