Unified management of information flow in supply chain

Information has become a key element of the supply chain, whether it is raw material acquisition, production arrangements, product sales, customer purchase and other stages, information is a key factor in decision-making. At the same time, information flow is the most frequent, fastest and most changeable one in the supply chain, so the management of information flow can provide the correct decision basis for other logistics and capital flow, so as to realize the goal of supply chain management. It can be said that effective information management is the key to the success of the supply chain.

I. Information management objectives and information components in the supply chain

In today's information economy era, information has become the key factor to determine the survival and development of enterprises, information management is also an important function of organizational management. Information management is an important part of supply chain management. The goal of information management along with business functions is always consistent with and supported by the objectives of the business function. The goal of supply chain management is to link market, distribution, manufacturing and procurement activities across all segments of the supply chain to achieve high and low cost of logistics and customer service to gain competitive advantage. Therefore, the goal of information management in the supply chain is to manage and control the information flow in the supply chain, to provide information support for the operation of all links in the supply chain, and to develop the value of the supply chain information resources in order to ensure the realization of supply chain objectives and obtain additional information resource benefits.

Enterprise internal information can provide more accurate and timely information to the upstream and downstream customers and suppliers, now the goal is to the enterprise and suppliers, customers three information connectivity, the main benefit of the following: first, the rapid delivery of information, to achieve rapid response. Once an exception occurs in a part of the supply chain, the relevant parts of the supply chain are immediately informed and coordinated in a timely manner. Or once the market changes, the market-oriented one end will quickly transfer information to the downstream supply chain link, resulting in a ripple effect. This does not cause the delay of information to cause more production, more procurement and waste of labor and various costs, the backlog of funds. Rapidly changing market, our enterprises often encounter orders cancellation, order changes or additional emergency orders, whether this information can be processed and digested in time, testing the supply chain of "flexibility." For example, A, b two brands of mobile phone companies, each launched their own characteristics of some products, products to the market must have different responses, such as a brand of a certain model of the mobile phone particularly popular, B Enterprises will immediately respond to produce similar to the B brand products or more competitive products, If the B brand products are more popular than a brand, a brand will no doubt design more competitive products. This is a never-ending cycle, in this cycle, each brand to the competitor's time is very short, from product design to quantity production less than one months, some product cycle is shorter, to achieve such a reaction speed, relying on mobile phone brand manufacturers (host factory) is impossible to do. In the process, who will be more responsive to capture more market share, which is certain. We can also from the development history of U disk obviously feel this rapid replacement trend. Second, reduce communication costs. Relative to an independent enterprise, the supply chain includes material suppliers and product distributors (i.e. customers). The cost of communicating with the upstream and downstream information is quite high, followed by a detailed analysis. Of course, the effect of forming a strategic supply chain is not limited to this, and it is not listed here.

On the other hand, it is necessary to establish an interconnected information system to manage the information flow in the supply chain. This is the most basic tool and condition that the enterprise can make quick reaction. Enterprises and enterprises have a large number of daily information needs to be transmitted, the current mode of information transmission is mostly through telephone, mail system, fax and other means to carry out, reflecting the slow and high cost. If the establishment of a unified information system or the enterprise and the Enterprise information interconnection, the result is completely different, the way of working is completely the same. For example, two enterprises to achieve information interconnection, an enterprise to arrange their own production, it can look at their own material suppliers inventory, according to the supplier's inventory to reasonable scheduling, to avoid downtime to be expected to occur. Or an enterprise want to adjust the order of production operations, you can inquire about the production and inventory of related enterprises at any time, to determine whether it can be matched. When the market environment changes, the source of information can be transmitted through the interconnection of the pipeline quickly to the node, and when the internal node of a problem, the same information channel can be passed to the other aspects of the relevant information. To achieve rapid transmission of information and rapid response.

At the same time, a lot of day-to-day business can also be realized through electronic data interchange, such as the purchase price information, purchase order information, incoming acceptance information and accounts receivable information between an enterprise and its purchasing supplier, through "electronic procurement system" (or SCM of supply chain management system, Supply Chain Relationship Management system SRM directly to achieve the exchange of data, as long as there is a source data, other data can be automatically generated and transmitted, greatly reduce the human cost of information entry, but also shorten the processing time of data and provide the credibility of the data. If both sides make their own set of data, in the follow-up also need to account, analysis, and will waste a lot of human and material resources, efficiency is very low. After the use of electronic procurement system to link the data between enterprises, the two sides of the data exactly the same, subsequent reconciliation action can be completely canceled. However, as far as I know, there is no software in the market can make two enterprise data truly seamless connection, must rely on a large number of two times development. Therefore, in order to implement the electronic procurement Exchange system of enterprises to make a suggestion, if a system supplier just want to buy a software to you, it is in you, it is difficult to succeed. So in doing this budget, we should also take into account the cost of two development, so that the interconnection between enterprises have resources available.

The characteristics of information in supply chain

Includes the following points: 1. Information must be true and accurate. Only a true and accurate description of the supply chain status can be used as a basis for decision making. Because of the diverse sources of information in the supply chain, the large volume and wide coverage, it is sometimes difficult to ensure that all information is absolutely correct, but the information described by the request is at least without directional errors. 2. Information must be available and utilized in a timely manner. Sometimes, although the information itself is true and correct, but not in time to collect, process, use, and information described things have changed, thereby reducing or even lost the value of information. 3. Information integrity. The information in the supply chain should be all information related to supply chain management and decision-making, while at the same time the collection of irrelevant or useless information is shed. 4. Incomplete information. The information of the objective fact is always impossible to get all, on the one hand because of the people's understanding degree, on the other hand is considers the information to obtain the cost, therefore we cannot and does not need to pursue obtains all information of the supply chain. 5. Extensive information. The supply chain is complex, activities and links are many, and the information in the supply chain covers the suppliers, manufacturers, sales and other links as well as customers, resulting in a wide range of informative. 6. Information should be shared. Through sharing can effectively reduce the bullwhip effect, realize the supply chain seamless connection, make it the most effective. But each enterprise for its own interests and risk prevention factors, may be unwilling to share their information, which makes the whole supply chain cost increase and efficiency. 7. Information processing is very difficult. The difficulty of supply chain information processing is not only because of the different sources and the wide Moreover, because the nodes in the supply chain are only the cooperative relationship, they focus on the different objectives, and the goals may be contradictory and conflicting, so the information conveyed to the whole supply chain management value difference is great.

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