Using A Bpm Solution To Maximize A Supply Chain

By Author: Miranda Von Stockhausen
Total Articles: 4717
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Many of today's larger businesses and organizations have very complicated supply chains, with various distribution methods, in-house and remote manufacturing, leased warehouse space, suppliers with different kinds of contracts and many combinations of these and other considerations. With Business Process Management (BPM) software solutions, companies can make decisions based on timely and accurate information, but it is important to understand that merely "having information" doesn't necessarily increase understanding of systems or lead inexorably to their efficient use. BPM solutions, therefore, are not mere "aggregators" or collectors of data, but decision-support tools.

For the unaided human mind - or even a collection of really good ones - the nearly incalculable number of possibilities and ever-changing dynamics of a supply chain present a monumental challenge, one rarely resolved without help. That help was not really forthcoming until our present Computer Age, with the advent of high-speed processing and sophisticated software. Businesses have found that BPM solutions enable not merely the amassing of large amounts ...
... of data, but the development of customized ways to present it so that better management decisions can be made at every level of an organization.

Past and future, together
Well-designed, efficient supply chain management must allow for tremendous flexibility, and adapt any number of historical tends into forecasts of possible futures. This is the means by which supply chains begin evolving, and enter into a productive lifespan of constant fine-tuning. Of course, "nothing is constant but change" and there is always uncertainty in the economy, the markets and the world at large. This means that BPM solutions, to work in the real and ever-changing world, must incorporate these various uncertainties into the models that will be produced and among which managers must choose.

These uncertainties, as well as all the known quantities and established influences - financial, practical, personnel-related, etc. - are known as "business drivers," since they drive, or motivate, certain organizational behaviors. Companies are constantly making decisions based on their reading of the business drivers that influence internal and external factors. The faster businesses respond, the better. With BPM solutions in place, the system can be on the lookout for trends and incidents as management defines them, and be ready to implement supply chain improvements to accommodate new directions and priorities.

Behaviors of stakeholders
Many businesses and organizations have increasingly complicated interrelationships affecting the supply chain, ones that are impossible to understand or manage without proper policies for doing so. Instituting a BPM system will bring business policies and management decisions in line with organizational goals as they apply to the supply chain (and whatever else you want to include). In complex organizations that deal with a high number of various stakeholders, customers, clients, decision makers, suppliers and service providers, the idea is to "embed" these variables into the various tasks. This is far beyond the capability of paper-and-pencil systems or antiquated spreadsheets, and BPM solutions have the capability to make it all much more comprehensible, as well as allow you to test different models.

This is a very important thing and deserves a little more explanation. Instead of changing supply chain parameters and "seeing what happens," risking the loss of money and time, companies can now put their ideas through the BPM system and construct various models to test greater efficiencies, different locations, various price points, a range of supplier changes and all the other existing (and potential) variables. The ability to model business decisions in software is a real money-saver, although it falls short of guaranteeing success, of course. However, this is a perfect example of how information, the raw data collected into your various digital systems, can become knowledge, and how knowledge can lead to decisions with a greater chance of success. BPM software is, after all, an aid to decision-making. It does not make those decisions on its own.

Summary
BPM systems help to create better-integrated management through the collection and analysis of timely information, and contain all the formerly scattered management processes in a single collaborative environment. With BPM decision-making based on modeling and estimates, businesses are better able to weather the lows and extend the highs along their performance curves, and overcome the various dampers on productivity - late suppliers, changes in pricing, production issues - by having alternatives at the ready.

Of course, nothing exists in a vacuum, and BPM solutions have to be implemented by human beings that remain prone to error. It is helpful, perhaps, to think of BPM "tools" rather than "solutions," as the latter word might suggest that there are no problems to be had in the future and that everything has been "solved." Remember that businesses are made up of people, and that GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out - is still the rule in any sort of programming, whether in software or human systems. Still, BPM software is the best way forward for companies managing supply chains, and is getting better all the time.
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As the process improvement (BPM) trailblazer, Savvion.com moves enterprises beyond ordinary BPM with groundbreaking business-critical software, solutions, and services that make them more competitive, agile and cost-efficient in today's tough economic times. Visit online today.