I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but over the last few years there has been a lot of talk about supply chain orchestration.
It’s an appealing concept, bringing to mind images of a maestro masterfully bringing in the right instruments at just the right time, and leading a disparate group of individuals with different tools to make beautiful music together.
Gilmore Says.... |
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| Orchestration is also being connected to physical order fulfillment in a distribution center, where there may be multiple automated and non-automated picking processes that need to be synchronized to achieve maximum total throughput. |
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But what does orchestration really mean in a supply chain context? Is there a supply chain conductor who is furiously moving his arms, baton in hand, bringing together Plan, Source, Make. Deliver and Returns?
I don’t know if the genesis of the use of the term in supply chain to Gartner’s original maturity model, going back some 20 years, I believe, in which the highest stage was “Supply Chain Orchestrator.”
M question from the start of that was this: can every company be a supply chain orchestrator, or is that only for a few very large companies with the ecosystem clout to serve in such a role?
Last I knew, Gartner was saying while a few companies were close, none had yet achieved full orchestrator status.
In more recent years, the orchestration concept has been applied in other supply chain areas.
One is related to a category of software called Distributed Order Management (DOM), which in general uses a flexible, dynamic rules engine that releases orders for fulfillment based on a variety of attributes (cost, service commitments, inventory availability, etc.), which in total could said to be orchestrating the process.
Orchestration is also being connected to physical order fulfillment in a distribution center, where there may be multiple automated and non-automated picking processes that need to be synchronized to achieve maximum total throughput.
Again, this type of orchestration is connected to specific categories of supply chain software said to provide such capabilities, namely Warehouse Execution Systems (WES) and a new category of software Gartner is calling a Multiagent Orchestration Platform, or MAOP.
MAOP is especially connected to mobile robots, with the “multiagent” term primarily referring to the management of different types of robots and/or from different vendors as if it was a single fleet.
There is also a category of software called “ Supply Chain Orchestration Platforms.”
I don’t know much about it. Gartner says such software is used to “power the transition of supply chain management from the back office to confronting and navigating business uncertainties. To enable this transition, these platforms use enterprise data enriched with network insights to prescribe and execute decisions in a governed manner.”
Well. I better get up to speed.
All of the above was triggered last week from an article on the web site of the World Economic Forum, best known for its regular conclave of the rich and powerful in Davos, Switzerland by SAP executive Dominik Metzger titled “Why autonomous orchestration is the next frontier in supply chain management.”
It starts like this: “In an era defined by geopolitical instability, tariffs, inflation, climate pressures, and rapid technological change, traditional supply chains - built on rigid, linear models - are ill-equipped to meet the flexibility and responsiveness that today’s fast-paced markets demand.”
A big part of the answer, Metzger says, is the new generation of AI “leveraging AI to automate decisions entirely, which enables the orchestration of supply chains by integrating applications, data and new automation technologies into truly agile operations.”
That does appear to be the brave new world we are heading towards.
What is required to get there? What is all the fuss about AI “agents” in achieving autonomous orchestration?
I think I shall leave that important discussion for next week.
What does supply chain orchestration mean to you?Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback button below.
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