February 21, 2017

The Most Overlooked and Underestimated Data in Supply Chain Design

Building a Process to Maintain Dense Matrix of Data Will Provide Flexibility Within the Supply Chain Model

Anyone who has done or seriously thought about a network design study realizes that you need a lot of data.  You need data on your customers and their demand, on your different products, on where product comes from, and the costs to move product around in the network.  And, this is just part of the data.

People (myself included) make the mistake of overlooking the other part of the data-- the creation of the dense data matrix. 

Watson Says... ...This data is the toughest to get and you don’t realize that you don’t have it until after the baseline model is built.  What do you say? Click here to send us your comments

What is a dense matrix of data?  We are using this term to refer to filling in the data for all possibilities-- what you do today and what you want to consider.

For example, the dense matrix of data for transportation is the cost to make any possible move in the supply chain.  In production, it is the cost to produce any item at any plant.  In warehousing, it is the cost to handle and store any item, no matter where product comes from our goes to.

This sounds obvious, but surprisingly it isn’t.  And, it isn’t obvious because this data is the toughest to get and you don’t realize that you don’t have it until after the baseline model is built.

This data is toughest to get because you don’t already have it and you have to match it to your existing data. 

For example, you likely have transportation rates from your existing warehouses to the customers you currently service.  The rates have been thoroughly negotiated and likely reflect market conditions.  When you ask a carrier for a rate for a lane that you aren’t currently using, you are likely to get a non-negotiated rate.  You have a few choices, you can use all non-negotiated rates in your model or you can use statistical techniques to figure out how well you would negotiate various lanes.

With production, it can be even harder.  Your standard costs show you how much it costs to make an item in a given plant.  But, this is an accounting cost.  It likely has fixed costs baked into it and has some assumption on how much of that product you are likely to make.  The result of your supply chain design model may double or half the amount a plant makes and change the product mix while it is at it.  You need your dense matrix of costs to be prepared for this.

On top of the difficulty, this data is often easy to overlook.  Usually a first step in the model building practice is to get a baseline model up and running.  The baseline model is meant to replicate your existing supply chain.  You use this model as one step in the validation process.  To build this model, you don’t need the dense matrix of data.  You just need data for things are you already doing.

If you haven’t built the dense matrix of data, you are going to be quickly disappointed when you try to run some initial scenarios and realize you need to go collect this data.

Final Thoughts

If you want to maintain the ability answer what-if questions with your supply chain model, you need to build a process to maintain the dense matrix of data.  This will give you a lot of flexibility.

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