Question

Survey of the Internet, books, journals, and other sources and provide a concrete example in the form of case studies from industry on the application of software in the supply chain process. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of using the software.

Answer 1

Advantages:

Get the data and information in real-time: The software can provide the supply chain data in real-time. The management can make use of this data to analyze the performance of the process and identify the best practices.

Improved decision making: The software can help the management in analyzing the data from different data sources and also provide visualization to help the company in making better business decisions.

Automation: The company can automate many processes in the supply chain management by using technology and improve the productivity. The company can also save money and reduce the human errors in the process by a good margin.  

Improve knowledge sharing: The company can make use of the technology to improve the knowledge sharing within the company and make the information accessible to all the employees in the company very quickly.

Disadvantages:

Clash of data sources: The technology might pick the wrong data sources and combine it with another data source to produce inaccurate results. This will make the decision making difficult and will consume a lot of time to sort the problem.

Lack of collaboration: Making different departments of the supply chain work together based on the same data source is very difficult. The collaboration will become weak among the departments of the business unit.

Lack of Innovation: Use of technology will put a break to the thinking process and the employees will stop innovating and finding new ways to improve the process.

Maintenance: The technology or any system used should always be maintained properly in order to get the desired results. If they are not maintained properly there will be a negative impact on the business with respect to the integrity of the data.