Characteristics of agile supply chain:
1, market sensitivity:
The so-called market sensitivity means that enterprises should master and respond to actual needs. The production plan of an enterprise should be driven by market demand, not demand forecast based on statistical analysis of historical sales data. Enterprises can respond to customized customer needs through the supply chain at the fastest speed, and the whole supply chain keeps continuous dynamics, which fully meets the needs of core enterprises in responding to customers.
Case study:
Unlike other enterprises, Dell does not keep the inventory of final products, but only keeps a few parts, such as hard disk, memory, keyboard, etc. Users can configure machines and place orders online according to their own needs through Dell's Internet. After receiving the customer's order, Dell's e-commerce system will automatically issue a manufacturing work order to the factory and a purchase order to the relevant suppliers.
2. Virtual chain:
By using information technology, data can be shared between the upstream and downstream links of the supply chain, forming a virtual supply chain. Many enterprises in the upstream of the supply chain cannot grasp the actual needs of the end users of the supply chain. These enterprises can only arrange production plans according to the orders of their direct downstream customers. The so-called "bullwhip effect" is formed because the actual demand of end users is distorted in the process of the supply chain passing from downstream to upstream, that is, a small change in the actual demand of end users will lead to a great change in the order quantity of upstream enterprises, and agile supply chain can effectively eliminate the "bullwhip effect" problem. That is, a small change in the actual demand of end users will lead to a large change in the order volume of upstream enterprises.
Case study:
Cisco is a model to realize virtual supply chain by Internet. More than 90% of the company's orders come from the Internet, while less than 50% are directly ordered by Cisco employees. Cisco connects parts suppliers, distributors and contract manufacturers through the company's extranet to form a virtual and timely supply chain in turn. When a customer orders a typical Cisco product, such as a router, through Cisco's website, the order will trigger a series of messages to the contract manufacturer who produces printed circuit boards, and at the same time inform the distributor to provide common components of the router, such as power supply. Cisco contract manufacturers who produce finished products such as router rack components can know the types and quantities of possible orders in advance by logging on Cisco's extranet and connecting to its production execution system.
3. Process integration:
Process reengineering means cooperation between partners, realizing the cooperative work between buyers and suppliers and sharing products, public systems and information. Through this process integration, enterprises can pay more attention to the development of their core competitiveness and outsource other activities. Agile supply chain starts from the expanded production concept, extends and delays the production activities of enterprises, brings upstream suppliers and downstream customers into the strategic planning of enterprises, and realizes the optimal allocation of internal and external resources of enterprises.
Case study:
At present, many retail enterprises such as Wal-Mart implement Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI). Suppliers always monitor the inventory of their customers (in this case, retail enterprises), and when the inventory drops to a certain extent, suppliers will automatically make up their positions. Retail enterprises will also provide sales data to suppliers in time to provide decision-making basis for suppliers to decide the replenishment quantity. Retail enterprises themselves are liberated from the inventory management business, so they can spend more energy to study customers' needs, develop more marketable goods and provide better services to customers.
4, based on the network:
Supply chain should be a consortium of partners connected together like a network. Individual enterprises no longer compete in a single form, but in the form of supply chain network. Those companies that can better organize and coordinate their partners will eventually win, so that their networks can provide better, closer and faster services to their end-user enterprises.
Case study:
Japan's largest mobile phone service provider, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company, started to provide mobile Internet service "i-mode" from 1999. By the beginning of 2002, the number of i-mode users had exceeded 30 million. According to DoCoMo's survey, most users use i-mode to send emails and surf the Internet every day. According to statistics, by April of 20001year, nearly 30% of stock transactions were conducted through I mode.
The success of i-mode is inseparable from its unique partner strategy. The main feature of NTTDoCoMo's strategy as a partner is that i-mode only focuses on its function of providing information delivery services, which facilitates upstream and downstream enterprises to obtain profits and develop space, thus rapidly expanding the network effect of i-mode. First of all, NTTDoCoMo makes it easy for manufacturers to produce mobile phones with i-mode functions through opening and agreement, which improves the market influence and market share of i-mode mobile phones, and also promotes the decline of the price of i-mode mobile phones, making it possible to
Secondly, when NTTDoCoMo develops the i-mode protocol, it takes into account the compatibility with the HTML protocol widely used in current websites, so that the content developed for websites can be easily converted into a form that i-mode mobile phones can read, thus attracting more users to browse websites with i-mode mobile phones. Thirdly, i-mode's charging strategy also attracts website content providers to make web pages and provide services for i-mode. Before i-mode, network content providers had to collect information fees from users themselves, while i-mode collected information fees from users on behalf of i-mode content providers audited by NTTDoCoMo, which ensured the income of content providers. Finally, the pricing strategy of i-mode also urges users to be online for a long time. In the past, mobile communication was charged according to the usage time, while i-mode was introduced to calculate the cost according to the data transmission volume, so that users can stay online for a long time without worrying about paying high communication fees.