Digital Logistics

Discover key factors for successful automotive supply chains

To run a successful supply chain in the automotive industry, you need to:

• plan resources proactively
• optimize networks
• automate order and transport management
• sync internal and external processes

Challenges

The auto industry faces numerous supply chain challenges: Supply bottlenecks are putting the squeeze on production processes. Transport chains are grinding to a halt. Technology is evolving with leaps and bounds. And multitudes of elements—supplier networks, multimodal supply chains, just-in-time and just-in-sequence cycles for thousands of vehicle parts and components—need to stay in sync for production to remain on schedule.

There is an urgent need for solutions to make automotive supply chains more resilient — solutions that give industry players smart control over logistics and production processes with the speed and flexibility to balance out fluctuations.

Solutions

Leverage digital technology to proactively plan resources, optimize networks, automate order and transport management, and sync internal and external processes.

Rev up your supply chain with our control tower
Enable end-to-end planning and organization of everything from procurement to warehousing to customer shipping. Do this by sharing order and transport data worldwide, integrating suppliers and logistics partners, and managing inbound and outbound logistics at production sites.

Our supply chain control tower is a command center and consolidation hub all in one. Deliver the necessary transparency regardless of IT system environment and enable end-to-end supply chain monitoring with our solutions. Your results include significantly lower process costs, less administrative overhead and greater reliability.


Master structural adaptations with the digital twin
Overcome the needed adaptations that are associated with structural changes. The growing demand for e-mobility and the coming reorganization of production make it necessary to rethink the supply chain. How do new sourcing strategies impact the logistics network? What does a smaller number of parts and components mean for procurement and manufacturing? How can sustainability goals be achieved?

Answer these questions with the digital twin; which empowers innovative new ideas and concepts. The digital twin gives carmakers and logistics experts a powerful analysis and simulation tool. It helps zero in on cause and effect in different scenarios, such as alternative supply intervals. Any tweak to the operational system can be played through a simulation in advance without risk, in order to assess its impact on the overall process—using real data. In this way, the digital twin lays the groundwork for key strategic, tactical and operational decisions in logistics networks.

Ensure strong bonds in chemical logistics supply chain

There’s real chemistry: the mixture of digital technology and logistics opens up a wide range of opportunities for the chemical industry.

Challenges

Companies in the chemical industry face business critical risks that can have large ripple effects: price hikes in procurement, bottlenecks in logistics, and production downtime due to scarce raw materials. With chemical products often being the raw material for other products, other industries—automotive, industrial machinery, etc.—rely on a dependable supply chain.

Smart software solutions make chemical supply chains more resilient and offer insurance against existential threats. But which elements need to bond to create a successful chemical supply chain?

Solutions

Leverage elements of greater transparency and efficiency
Use digital models and tools for successful supply chain management that uses a data stream to keep processes running smoothly. This boosts supply chain resiliency for both inbound and outbound processes.

Digital, cloud-based control towers are key for communication with various carriers and transport service providers. They also perform a wide range of monitoring and control tasks, delivering end-to-end visibility in complex chemical logistics networks.

Implement solutions for successful production and logistics
Today’s sophisticated planning and simulation tools help chemical companies get quick answers to questions like these: Is the allocation of suppliers to plants ideal? How can you optimize site-to-site chemical transports? What is the perfect delivery interval?

Modern software solutions can offer more than just efficient supply chain planning with a digital twin. The digital twin is a virtual clone of your logistics network that can accurately analyze and evaluate every conceivable scenario for its impact on the overall process:

• How can you optimize shipments of raw materials and intermediate products to the various production plants?
• How can you manage bulk packaging, tankers and drums for maximum efficiency?
• How can you avoid supply chain risks—or at least minimize their impact on production processes?

The digital twin helps you make the right decisions to ensure smooth transport processes and perfectly sync internal and external logistics. For chemical managers, this means making production and logistics more profitable.

The interface of digital technology and logistics opens up a wide range of opportunities for the chemical industry. Our solutions deliver you the industry savvy to put into place the right solution for your business.

Go digital for a competitive retail supply chain

In the fast-moving world of consumer goods, logistics represents a critical competitive factor.

Challenges

How can retailers cope with changing environmental conditions, supply problems and an unreliable flow of goods? How can the demand for carbon-neutral, fair-trade products be satisfied in an economically sustainable way?

Retailers need to ensure goods are available at the point of sale when needed, even when faced with unforeseeable restrictions and new challenges, including:

• creation of new shopping experiences
• ever-changing demand and fleeting trends
• seasonal peaks that require precision so you can constantly stay ahead of the competition

Now more than ever, the retail and consumer goods industry faces challenges that can only be overcome with a new way of thinking. This is true in sales and marketing, but it is especially true in procurement and logistics.

Solutions

Enable the successful management of expansive international retail and supplier networks with smart digital solutions. Precisely fine-tune production and transport links to ensure the long-term agility and competitiveness of manufacturers and retailers, both online and offline.

Bring multi-channel to procurement
Control and optimize every step, from ordering to transport to goods receipt, both inbound and outbound. To do this, the various players in the supply chain must be interconnected. Manufacturers, logistics service providers, stores and markets need a cross-enterprise, system-neutral platform that consolidates all data streams.

Implement a cloud-based solution, like a supply chain control tower, to make this kind of collaboration a reality. Get end-to-end visibility of the logistics network across all suppliers, warehouses and stores—plus complete monitoring of goods deliveries.

The control over shipping processes incorporates all the factors that might lead to delays, unnecessary special transports, or even outright cancellations. This mitigates risk factors such as extreme weather, traffic congestion, or the impact of crises, making goods procurement more resilient and even cheaper in the end.

Online management of offline activities
Streamline costs and remain responsive by leveraging the support of smart systems for planning and optimization. The pressure that brick-and-mortar businesses feel from e-commerce may be unwelcome, but it is a sign of where everyone is headed: even offline retail cannot remain competitive over the long term without digital solutions.

The digital twin, which digitally maps and analyzes supply chains or store networks, is an example of a tool that helps make informed decisions. The digital twin uses real, validated data to allow you to precisely simulate growth scenarios, forecast capacity reserves and optimize procurement networks. This makes it possible to calculate and assess the ramifications of changes. 

We have the industry expertise and logistics experience to help you implement a personalized IT solution.

Prevent a short-circuit

The procurement situation in the electronics and semiconductors industry needs a control tower solution to streamline the supply chain.

Challenges

Electronics manufacturers see a growing need for a reboot: the components they urgently need are caught up in congested supply chains. Customer orders cannot be filled. Supply chain bottlenecks are now the norm. Manufacturers find it increasingly difficult to obtain microchips from East Asia and the US, creating a semiconductor crisis.

Many factors are driving these trends: natural disasters, geopolitical tensions, trade wars, and other irregularities in the globally intertwined procurement network are upending the delicately balanced structure.

In times of economic stress, manufacturers and other market players ask the tough questions: Are just-in-time deliveries still possible? How much will it cost to boost inventories? Does it make sense to keep offshoring production? How is it possible to reliably satisfy the demand for electronic components?

Solutions

Use technology to power logistics networks
Digital models and tools are indispensable for supply chain management in the electronics and semiconductor industry. They deliver the data streams that keep processes under control. They help make inbound and outbound supply chains more transparent and resilient, paving the way for profitability.

Digital platform solutions, such as cloud-based control towers, serve as a motherboard for your logistics: a centralized interface to all stakeholders that's needed to ensure a smooth supply chain. All the players involved in the production and supply process are integrated and synced, regardless of the IT systems they use in-house: suppliers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), manufacturers, logistics service providers, freight forwarders, customs authorities and service partners. Workflows are standardized and processes work together seamlessly. This ensures that even sensitive components reach your customers.
The sooner more focus is placed on procurement and more transparency is achieved in the interrelationships and dependencies in the supply chain, the sooner manufacturers will be able to shore up their market and make production profitable.

Green light for success
Use tools to help shine a light on every conceivable scenario or risk in the supply chain, and accurately assess their impact on the overall process so that goods can flow easily. Planning and simulation tools, such as the digital twin, are now so sophisticated that businesses can analyze alternative courses of action in advance. This means you can plan logistics success in the electronics and semiconductor industry and answer these questions: What changes to the supplier network are needed to ensure a successful go-to-market? How can you navigate around the problems of one supplier? How can transport and logistics processes be optimized for efficiency and sustainability?

The electronics and semiconductor industry needs a sustainable and resilient supply chain. We have the right mix of industry savvy and technological expertise to deliver the digital logistics solutions your company needs.

Embrace machine complexity

Digital logistics solutions are indispensable in the manufacture of industrial machinery and equipment.

Smart tools and digital platform solutions deliver transparency, predictability and the greatest possible cost control over machinery and equipment manufacturing processes. The planning and control of process flows in production and logistics can be perfectly synchronized and coordinated to allow for agile management of any unforeseen events.

This yields greater supply chain visibility and production processes that are leaner, more reliable and more cost-efficient across the board.

Challenges

The complexity of machines is growing. This leads to more complex supply chains that bring together a variety of just-in-time or just-in-sequence parts and components all the way to the production line. Shortages of raw materials and skyrocketing energy costs also greatly impact the viability of existing procurement structures.

Solutions

Today’s digital solutions can do it all—from automatic carrier assignment and digital freight rate management to real-time shipment tracking.

Replace manual processes
Use cloud-based tools, like supply chain control towers, to replace error-prone manual processes with smart data consolidation and with the integration of all involved partners across the process chain. Integrated apps, like track and trace, and a system of automated alerts ensure visibility and the utmost supply chain dependability. This not only identifies procurement bottlenecks early on, but drives down costs by avoiding them altogether.

Implement digital rate card management solutions
Ensure cost efficiency and streamline shipments of spare parts and components by calculating various shipping options with digital rate card management solutions. Eliminate the hassle of comparing countless shipping options, whether you want to find the cheapest transport option, shorten freight transit times or reduce your carbon emission.

Discover planning tools
Plan for the future: Is the volatility in industrial machinery and equipment procurement and orders here to stay? What is the best way to deal with supplier problems? How can production remain profitable in different market scenarios?

Planning tools, such as the digital twin, are already familiar in the industrial machinery and equipment sector. The capacity of the digital twin to provide a virtual representation of reality can be extended to include logistics, enabling the risk-free analysis, simulation and evaluation of various supply chain concepts and scenarios. These findings then yield decisions on strategic and sustainable network optimization and make it possible to develop solutions perfectly adapted to real-world conditions.

Directly connect to the digital age

Logistics services are becoming increasingly complex as they adapt to ever-changing market conditions and more frequent delivery intervals.

Challenges

Today, logistics has many unknowns. Shipping volumes fluctuate. Storage and transportation resources are in short supply. Costs are skyrocketing. These obstacles underscore how important it is to be quick and flexible in responding to changing situations and to make the most of your network and processes. 

Excel spreadsheets alone aren’t efficient. The modern world of logistics is digital: communication, interaction and automation. Numbers, data and information flows enable solutions that ensure greater agility and more reliable planning. This is the route to better results—and less stress.

Solutions

Master your data stream
The control tower is a key tool for optimizing how logistics processes are managed. It’s a command center and consolidation hub all in one. It connects everyone involved in a process regardless of their IT system environment, delivers the necessary transparency and enables end-to-end supply chain monitoring. The result: significantly lower process costs, less administrative overhead and greater reliability.

Digital solutions let you integrate new partners into your network, calculate freight costs and track shipments in real time—making you the master of your goods and data.

A cloud-based control tower, used for distribution management or to control a procurement network, can be seamlessly integrated into existing system environments to replace standalone solutions and standardize logistical processes.

Find the best solution easily and without risk
What does it mean for your logistics processes when shipping volumes change, new locations or network partners are added, or routes have to be reorganized? How can you optimize transports when bundling cargo or consolidating shipments through a hub? How can you use modal shifts and other approaches to attain your sustainability goals more easily? Where can cost savings be achieved?

A digital twin gives you the analysis and simulation capacities you need to plan ahead and tweak logistics processes based on real data. Optimize your network strategy by playing through various scenarios to their logical conclusion without risk—like looking into a crystal ball. The result is better supply chain management and a logistics and transportation network optimized for the long haul.

Create a supply chain for stable supply circulation

Many industry players are not far away from having stable supply chains. The data needed for optimizations is often already being collected. What’s needed to achieve healthier outcomes is smart data consolidation.

Challenges

The stress afflicting the healthcare industry didn’t just start with the pandemic. Bottlenecks in the supply chain for raw materials jeopardize production processes. Global regulations require the highest standards of transparency and quality assurance. Counterfeits make life more difficult for manufacturers. In a nutshell: medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers face serious risks.

The situation requires:

• technology and optimized processes to strengthen the resilience of supply chains
• tools for monitoring compliance with the latest unique device identification specifications
• answers to growing price pressures

Solutions

Ensure stable supply circulation with supply chain control tower solutions
Digital technology is the best way to boost efficiency in the healthcare sector. Today’s digital solutions make it possible to connect the loose ends of the logistics process chain, from procurement to production to distribution—including any recalls. Order and transport data from suppliers and logistics service providers around the world are linked to internal production information for compliance with the relevant rules and regulations.

Cloud-based IT platforms are often at the heart of the digital supply chain. They act as control towers that integrate all the applications needed for smooth collaboration in logistics networks and for stabilizing the circulation of the supply chain. 

The supply chain control tower connects all supply chain players, provides all the necessary information, offers just-in-time control of time-sensitive shipments, and proactively sounds the alarm in the event of deviations from delivery deadlines. The solution also ensures end-to-end monitoring of cold chains, expiration dates and other parameters.

Gain supply chain visibility: The x-ray view of your supply chain
Supply chain visibility is one of the most effective safeguards protecting your ability to supply your customers. An x-ray view of the structure and dependencies of the entire supply chain makes it possible to recognize risks and side effects early on.

Simulation models like the digital twin take things a step further. They leverage existing data to highlight the effects of changes in the process chain, taking into account all factors and applicable regulations, such as FDA compliance.

Digital rate card management is the ideal tool for shining a light on the master agreements you have with various providers. It provides a basis for determining and calculating prices that let you compare logistics services and speed up requests for proposals (RFPs).

The clear diagnosis: Transparent and resilient supply chains are the active ingredient in the success of medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers.