Many supply chain leaders think of S&OE as yet another system to be acquired or patched on to S&OP. Although this maybe a viable strategy but not a particularly efficient one.
Digitalization & Machine Learning
Most supply chain practitioners believe that there is a need for a rough long term planning engine (S&OP) and yet another for plan execution (S&OE).
I find it interesting that most companies choose their supply chain planning vendor based on how nice it looks but pay very little attention as to how good the quality of plans are. Not all planning systems are created equal.
Resiliency of supply chain is the ability to withstand changes in demand and supply and the ability to respond effectively.
Having S&OP and S&OE as two separate systems does not make sense, it is redundant and costly. Having two systems implies two disjoint systems that do not understand each other’s data model.
The concept of supply chain digital twin has become very popular in recent years. It is essentially a digital model of your supply chain intended to be the foundation for companies to plan and operate their supply chain digitally and autonomously.
Gartner is advocating composable business architecture for real-time adaptability and resilience in the face of uncertainty.
Robots are known to perform repetitive jobs that can be pre-programmed. However, AI/ML involves decisions and reasoning, i.e. intelligence.
Resiliency of your supply chain implies the ability to withstand unanticipated events, big or small. Your resiliency depends on many factors.
