Email
sinha.rk.dr@gmail.com
It takes courage to simplify Supply Chain processes.
Most companies have improved and fine-tuned their supply chin processes over time. These are now firmly set in their day-to-day working, hardly ever questioned by the employees using them.
Digital technologies now give us power to not only automate some of the manual and tedious ones, but simplify the more complex ones. However, I have seen teams struggling with these changes. Why should that be if it helps the employees as well as the company?
Let’s take a simple example of freight payments. Transporters raise invoices periodically for the freight payable for transporting goods across various locations. These are checked by the Logistics team against the delivery challans, e-Way bills, proof of receipt, quality confirmation, detention charges, penalty for late delivery… Companies would either clear the payment right away or raise a debit note for various shortcomings. These are often disputed by transporters and the discussions go on and on…
TMS now enables Electronic Proof of Delivery (ePOD), which establishes facts about many variables involved in reconciliation, such as timing of delivery and quality confirmation. This information can be used directly to raise the freight invoice, thereby simplifying the process. However, its adoption is still low. One needs to convince the finance team that the process is robust enough to capture all the nuances to do away with debit notes.
Such a process must involve the Finance team during the design process itself!