Supply Chain Management - Problems and Roadblocks
Companies increasingly are becoming aware that their opportunity to having a competitive edge in business can come through supply chain. In the case of companies operating on global scale, supply chain strategies drive operational efficiencies and affect the bottom line. Unlike technology or other core areas affecting business, Supply chain is always in a dynamic mode. Project managers who head supply chain projects are often faced with lot of challenges and issues to over come all through the project. In this topic we air to discuss a few practical problems and road blocks faced in implementing and operations of Global supply chain projects.
Project Scale & Span of Control
Often projects are rolled out on global scale involving multiple countries and locations with all sites scheduled to go live around same timelines. The Project managers and sponsors would be located in one country and physically it becomes impossible for project managers to keep running to all locations and be available to concentrate on all sites. Yes project teams are formed at regional country level. However if the project planning, design and control lies with one office or a single person or a team, the rest of the project teams would become enablers and implementers resulting in the dilution of energy and focus. The core project team resources cannot spread themselves thin to attend to all sites and hence the biggest or the most important locations get attention while the others suffer due to lack of focus.
Supply chain projects involve technology implementation including infrastructure and software. They also involve multiple logistical modules involving transportation, international freight and warehousing etc.
Span of control over project implementation is very important in case of logistics projects involving multiple channels and external and internal agencies. Project managers at best can concentrate on rolling out the project in one country depending upon the number of sites and the logistical components involved.
If the project involves setting up a distribution center or warehouse, all the more reasons that the roll out should be limited to country level.
Technology
Adoption of right technology and implementation often faces roadblocks in implementing global supply chain projects. Projects roll out common processes to be followed across all countries and locations and involve use of technology to drive the processes.
Many issues concerning technology are faced in a project:
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