Supply Chain Management Manager Quick Test: Exposing A Risky Supply Chain

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Many companies have adapted their supply chains due to the numerous crises, but have not fundamentally improved them. Structural weaknesses continue to impact liquidity, costs, planning and delivery capacity.

As these structural weaknesses arise across departments and need to be resolved, the supply chain experts at Kloepfel by EPSA have developed a simple checklist. It enables managers from all departments to carry out a self-diagnosis in just a few minutes.

Note 1: Silo Thinking Instead of Teamwork

A central problem is the inadequate coordination between purchasing, planning, production and sales. Information is passed on late or incompletely, decisions are made in isolation. Optimizations in individual departments do not eliminate problems, but shift risks, bottlenecks and costs along the supply chain.

Solution: Regular, binding coordination across departmental boundaries replaces isolated individual optimizations.

Note 2: Excel Instead of Transparency

Planning, inventories and delivery commitments are maintained in parallel in different systems and in some cases still in Excel. This leads to different data statuses and a lack of a uniform data basis. Decisions therefore depend on the knowledge of individuals, not on transparent, shared figures.

Solution: Planning tools bring together data from all relevant systems and create a reliable basis for planning, inventories and delivery commitments.

Note 3: Suppliers Instead of Buyers at the Wheel

Stagnating demand is leading to a buyer's market, with companies increasingly giving in on delivery dates, quantities or prices. These compromises are becoming the norm. Declining negotiating power is a symptom of structural weaknesses in the supply chain.

Solution: A cross-departmental supplier strategy with clear priorities, alternatives and defined scope for negotiation strengthens your own position and reduces dependencies.

Note 4: Cost Increase Instead of Added Value

Rising transportation, inventory and coordination costs are often not the real problem, but the visible symptom. High stock levels tie up working capital, worsen liquidity and increase risk without reliably improving delivery capability.

Solution: Inventories, throughput times and processes must be managed holistically in order to reduce capital commitment and cut costs sustainably.

Note 5: Actionism Instead of Root Cause Analysis

Express deliveries, rescheduling at short notice and manual interventions characterize everyday life in many places. Decisions are often based on incomplete, contradictory or outdated data. Causes are operationally concealed instead of systematically remedied.

Solution: Recurring faults must be made transparent, systematically analyzed and permanently resolved using functioning processes instead of covering them up with short-term emergency solutions.

Conclusion

"When supply chains only function through compromises, firefighting and rising costs, this is no longer an isolated case, but a structural problem," says Ingo Glawe, supply chain expert at Kloepfel by EPSA. (mk)

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