Data visualization has innumerable advantages in supply chain management, for it can reveal significant insights about supply chain KPIs (key performance indicators). These can help businesses optimize processes for greater returns and make the supply chain more sustainable. Suffice it to say it’s a win-win situation for everyone.
In this article, we take a look at what data visualization is at the fundamental level and how we can use data visualization principles to reveal important insights about the supply chain in an actionable manner.
What is data visualization?
Data visualization is all about presenting data in a graphical format to tell a story using visuals. It gives a visual context for available information. Data-driven decision-making is nothing new, and approaches like Six Sigma and Lean routinely use data at every step to guide businesses.
Dashboards are often harnessed to present a 360° bird’s eye view of the supply chain, which reveals latent problems and helps businesses identify the right solutions. With a holistic view of the grand picture, it’s much easier to identify and resolve challenges with innovative solutions.
Supply chain and data visualization
Supply chain data visualization is a great way for employees to track data in real timesupply, even when it is channeled from multiple sources. This improves transparency and visibility into key insights to both supply chain employees and customers and ultimately helps deliver greater value for higher customer satisfaction levels.
Data visualization when harnessed for supply chain management can be used to manage and fine-tune supply chains for improved efficiency. Data visualization can yield crucial insights such as alternatives to current suppliers and help hunt for the right replacements in the most cost-effective manner. All this would be impossible without an understanding of the current supply chain processes.
The globalization of supply chains has increased the complexity manifold for businesses. Amid this chaos, data visualization holds a shining light for companies to simplify processes and procure business inputs in an optimized manner.
Data visualization also helps visualize the state of inventories and manage them in an efficient manner. It will empower buyers to choose the right suppliers and goods in the interest of the company and the end users as a whole.
Use data to achieve supply chain perfection
Data visualization is the art and science of harnessing the might of data and using it in a visual framework to gather rich and actionable insights. When applied to the supply chain, it can greatly improve efficiency.
Supply chain data visualization aggregates data from multiple sources and presents them in a unified single pane of glass view for everyone to see. This breaks down silos and cuts across hierarchy, helping everyone see critical information and use it to refine processes to ultimately reduce costs. It also helps reduce inventory management costs with greater visibility and helps achieve higher customer satisfaction levels.
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