Supply chain management (SCM) is concerned with the coordination and management of organizations within a supply chain. Logistics is the part of SCM that manages the flows of goods and information within the organizations’ direct operations sphere. The Supply chain could be defined as the management of flows and processes over organizational tasks, and with successful SCM companies can improve many business aspects including R&D, lower costs, higher profitability, and better customer satisfaction - SCM affects everything directly or indirectly.
There are Different Flow Types in a Supply Chain:
Financial, product, value, and all of those are built upon the flow of information. Information provides the foundation on which the supply chain performs - without necessary information employees and managers cannot execute tasks and activities. The lack of efficient information flows is actually found to be one of the greatest challenges of organizational performance. Information flows are fundamental in the execution of business strategy and clear information flows foster efficient collaboration and track productivity. A phenomenon that many industries struggled with during the coronavirus outbreak was the bullwhip effect, which is effectively mitigated with communication and efficient information flows.
Although the flow of information is efficient in many existing business systems within the spectra of a supply chain that they are covering, it is rarely “smart”. Smart information flows sense changes, problems and deviations in agreements, and various deal details and communicate the issues and upcoming tasks to relevant stakeholders. In the Timber Exchange platform, a smart flow of information was on top of the agenda when the development work started, as the industry professionals behind Centersource had experienced mistakes and misunderstandings way too many times with the root cause of bad communication and no accountability tracking. Another dimension of the smart information roles is that you can add your colleagues and assign a staff role to their user so they only access information that is relevant to them and that they are authorized to see and manage, and the same principle goes for the flows of information between the trade partners and forwarders.
In addition to smart information flows, the Timber Exchange provides a shared workspace and automated environment for trade partners and forwarders for them to execute deals and logistics effectively. To mention only a couple of the 150+ smart tools in the platform: all shipments are tracked in real-time, all trading documents are generated by the system and all it requires is one-time input of data and then the platform takes care of the rest - send out reminders, updates ETA and make sure all deal milestones are managed and deadlines are kept.
For more information, book an onboarding call with the Timber Exchange team of experts.