Phase Four is characterised by making data easily accessible to other businesses, both up and down the supply chain.

A Typical Phase Four Business

Poor supply chain communication is the hidden productivity killer. It may only take five to ten minutes to chase up information but doing it five to ten times a day adds up fast. It’s common for 10% to 30% of the workday to be spent on the phone waiting for someone to find information.

The business heavily relies on phone calls and emails to communicate with customers and suppliers. This form of communication takes a lot of time and capacity; you’ll find that staff spend much of their day waiting for information rather than action. People would love to not have to spend as much time on the phone.

Right now, most communication about jobs and orders occurs by phone or email. If information is needed from other organisations, this is received by phone or email. For the most part, customers contact the business by phone or email.

Most of the pricing and/or quoting information and rates needed from other organisations are received by phone or email. Customers must call or email to find out the status/location of their job/order. The same process applies when dealing with suppliers.

The Transition Journey From Phase Three

You are beginning to integrate your information along the supply chain by identifying some chunks of your information that can be automatically transferred to/from suppliers/partners. You are investing in automations that allow third parties to obtain information without your people having to respond to customer/supplier requests.

You are encouraging your customers to place orders electronically. You are making increased use of web APIs and email readers to eliminate data entry by having the system automatically capture the data.

You are increasing the range of services and data your customers can access electronically to make business decisions and track job status, such as tracking information and pass-through rates (e.g. carriers).

The Benefits of Completing Phase Four

Customers/suppliers have access to the system. This could be rates, availability, or expected due date. Your system captures the data needed and a job is created automatically.

• Customers can place orders electronically through the system, rather than by calling or emailing. They have access to all the information they need to make an order.
• The customer can track their job to completion, or from origin to destination, update information, all without the need for disruptive calls or emails. Meanwhile, you retain control over what is acceptable.

Most information is transferred through the system. Visibility is key, customers have access to the system, likely directly or through a web interface, allowing them to retrieve status updates or other information they require. In some cases, data is automatically transferred into the customers’ systems, meaning they have access to identical and up-to-date data.

• Job updates are transferring automatically into/out of your software systems from/to other organisations (e.g. customs), without people having to do anything!
• Rates transfer directly into your system from other organisations (such as carriers), without people having to do anything.
• Your people are seldom distracted from their other tasks, and your people rarely need to contact third parties directly for routine information.
• There are fewer staff disruptions due to third party information requests.

Operating procedures and their automation

The focus moves from enhancing individual productivity to enhancing the flow of work.

Jobs start involving multiple resources. There are milestones and people’s activity becomes dependent on handovers from other people. Staff begin to be specialised and the management of flow, rather than individuals, moves to the forefront of operational consideration. Bottlenecks start to appear and resourcing conflicts develop. Another step change occurs…

Phases Five and Six are a focus on processes (operating procedures and their automation)

• Phase Five – Workflow, “Job progress is clearly visible”
• Phase Six – Workflow Automation, “Automation of human tasks”