The supply chain implementation consists of two parts: project team organization and selection of vendors.
(a) Project Team Organization: Supply chain integration is a serious task throughout an organization. Given its significance, it is important to organize a supply chain project team to kick-start the integration task. In the previous sections, we discussed supply chain integration, which involves the readiness of people;
setting of business objectives and supply chain design metrics; and the definition of the to-be supply chain process flow and the high-level of technical architecture design and analysis. In this section, we provide recommendations for the organiz-ing of team members’ roles in the supply chain integration project. The followorganiz-ing team members are outlined in the supply chain design:
• Executive Sponsor
• Steering Committee
• Project Manager
• Business Strategy/Process Lead
• Solution Architect
• Business Analyst
• Systems Integrator
Table 4. Team members’ roles for supply chain integration
Team Members Major Responsibilities Skill Requirements Executive Sponsor
(Project Chairman) • Stakeholder of the program or project
• Monitor the details of the design and implementation
• Conduct regular meetings
• Human and organizational skills
• Problem and conflict solving
• Change management
• Supply chain experience and knowledge
Steering
Committee • Group of departmental heads like VP and senior managers that review the progress of the project
• Detailed understanding of departmental functions
• Management skills Project Manager • Launch the project
• Monitor project timeline, budget, objectives, and team members
• Report to executive sponsor and steering committee
• Project management
• Human and communication skills
• Supply chain strategy planning
• Supply chain analysis and design
• Technical integration skills Business Strategy/
Process Lead • Lead a group of business analysts or business process analysts
• Develop supply chain execution strategy
• Identify the bottlenecks of the current supply chain
• Define the area of process improvements
• Report to the project manager
• Collaborate with technical team
• Project management
• Human and communication skills
• Supply chain strategy planning
• Supply chain analysis and design
• Technical integration skills
Solution Architect • Lead the system integration team
• Access viability of the system architect and construct the supply chain system architecture
• Architectural analysis and design
• Define the design elements and incorporate with existing design
• Collaborate with business team and project manager
• Technical and integration experiences and skills
• Software project management
• Sound business process and workflow knowledge
• Human and organizing skills
Business Analyst • Identify the stakeholder or process owner in the supply chain
• Manage the stakeholders’
business requirements
• Designs supply chain business model
• Identify supply chain process bottlenecks
• Design new business process
• Conduct user acceptance test and user training
• Managing the process quality
• Strong business and supply chain acumen
• Business process and workflow design skills
• Understand human psychology
• Change management
• Analytical skills
System Integrator • Implement the supply chain management software suite
• Customization and system integration
• Testing and debugging
• Develop database
• Strong technical implementation skills
• Programming languages and middleware skills
• Basic business process knowledge
• Balancing the business and technical constraints
Table 4 presents a summary of team members’ roles in the supply chain integration project. It is proposed, based on the foundations of the SCOR model and the Rational Unified Process (RUP), a methodology for software and system development.
Table 4 summarizes the basic requirements for a supply chain integration team. It is crucial for businesses to allocate the right people with the right skills for supply chain design.
(b) Vendor Selection: The market for supply chain management application is devel-oping rapidly, and it is heading toward a maturity stage due to industry consoli-dation, such as mergers and acquisition between business application vendors (e.g., the merger between enterprise software vendor PeopleSoft with JD Edwads).
However, vendors for the supply chain management system are still in the process of adding more functional capabilities, such as deploying Web services architec-ture to enhance the robustness and ease of integration of the supply chain suite.
In addition, vendors such as IBM also create value-added services to clients by aligning the business strategy, process, and outsourcing services of the existing enterprise system package with the acquisition of the management consulting firm, PriceWaterHouse Consulting. These market movements create more options and rational approaches for businesses in consideration of vendors’ selection for their supply chain implementation.
This section aims to classify supply chain management vendors to assist businesses in evaluating vendors based on matching their supply chain goals, strategies, and business processes. Before the vendor selection, there are several steps that need preparation.
• A clearly defined supply chain goal and objective.
• The availability of supply chain transformation metrics and performance measure-ment metrics.
• The education of employees and suppliers for the change initiative. Training and workshops need to be conducted to get the company ready for supply chain integration.
• The documenting of supply chain process bottlenecks and the new design process to improve the supply chain.
• Groups of project teams that are committed full-time to the project.
After these things are ready, the following are the key criteria for supply chain management vendor selection.
• Agreement on the supply chain strategy, metrics, design requirements, and business processes.
• Make sure the vendors understand the nature of industry in which the business is involved (e.g., the manufacturing process and unique business requirements).
• The supply chain application offers by the vendor, whether or not they can be embedded within the company’s business processes.
• The maintenance, upgrade, troubleshooting, and other related after-sales services offered by the vendor. It is also important to evaluate the terms and conditions in the software service maintenance contract before the selection.
• The review of the supply chain suite system architecture, whether it is easily implemented without complex customization and also whether it is expandable for future company growth.
• Always ask for client references from the vendor in order to call its existing customers that use the system to evaluate the product and services as well as the vendor track records in the industry.
• Make sure the implementation is budget-wise feasible.
After we align the business objectives with technology and the selection criteria are ready, Table 5 provides the classification for supply chain management vendors.
There is no absolute answer for which vendor’s solution is the best supply chain suite for integrating the value chain. The most important part of designing an integrating supply chain is to get the employee ready for change, develop a feasible supply chain strategy and improvement metric, define the to-be process flow, and design the technical architecture before selecting the vendor.
Table 5. Supply chain management solution providers
Vendor Category Definition
Supply Chain
Specialist These solution providers are pure players in the supply chain management software market. They provide end-to-end supply chain suite, including demand planning, order fulfillment, warehouse and inventory management, sourcing, logistic management ,and delivery. Some of the leading vendors are i2 Technologies and Manugistics.
Enterprise Business Application Providers
These solution providers start their business by providing other business applications such as MRP and ERP systems for manufacturing and retailing companies. They jump on the bandwagon of providing supply chain management systems after they recognize the market needs (e.g., SAP AG, PeopleSoft, Oracle and SSA Global).
Niche Specialist These solution providers focus on certain components of the whole supply chain suite, such as procurement and sourcing, or even B2B marketplace (e.g., Ariba, CommerceOne, and EXE (now part of SSA Global).
Middleware Vendor These solution providers focus on providing Middleware, business process integration, and monitoring applications for supply chain integration. They are capable of utilizing Web services standards like XML, .NET, and J2EE in their application (e.g., WebMethods, SeeBeyond and Tibco).
Management and Technology Consulting Firms
These solution providers align business and supply chain consulting services with technical application implementation for clients. They have in-depth experience and expertise in vertical industries, and sometime they also provide business process outsourcing for clients (e.g., Accenture, IBM Business Consulting, EDS, and AT Kearney).
3PL Logistic
Providers These solution providers add value to their physical logistic services by providing logistic outsourcing solutions to clients in the areas of warehouse management, fulfillment, and inventory handling (e.g., UPS Supply Chain and FedEx).