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Industries

Construction

Effective management of information is an imperative in the Construction supply chain. Poor management in this area has a strong correlation with poor QA/QC performance, increased operating costs and subsequent loss of business. Historically, technology diffusion within the industry has been very slow, primarily driven by fragmentation.

In our vision, players in the construction industry can leverage emerging technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Telematics to better manage the flow of materials and site-based project management.

Our vision comprises 4 essential elements:

1. Dynamic Supply Chain Management
   Members of the value chain have access to information in real time, although the form may be different in each case. Decisions become a collaborative effort and affect 4 main areas of operation; Customer Management, Cash Management, Fulfilment and Product Development.
2. Customer Management
   The focus here is sales force effectiveness and the need to reduce cost of sales while increasing the volume of transactions. Using traditional telephony call center solutions integrated with advanced electronic marketplace features, sales executives have a choice of media to interact with their client base. The extensive use of wireless technologies ensures that customers have the latest information on quotes, orders, shipment status and the results of critical quality control tests. Coupling business intelligence with raw supply chain data allows suppliers and their customers to make informed and increasingly collaborative decisions on forecasting and pricing.
3. Cash Management
   Delay in the payment of invoices threatens the commercial viability of many companies. Severe delays often can exceed 200 days. Bad or missing information is the major culprit with an excessive amount of time spent reconciling orders, delivery notes and invoices. Providing visibility across the chain from supply to demand ensures that all players have the same picture and can plan finances accordingly. The solution requires linking supply chain financial control with elements of project management. Real time track and trace facilities with authentication and non-repudiation helps shorten the order-to-cash cycle. Payment processes must extend project cash flow management across the chain employing the principles of Just-In-Time (JIT), Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and Collaborative Planning and Forecasting (CPF).
4. Fulfillment
   Anywhere between 10-20% of the final product ticket price is determined by the logistical costs of bringing together raw materials and delivering finished goods to customers. The Construction industry is highly fragmented and competitive. Taking cost out of fulfilment by increasing resource utilization is very desirable. However, optimizing through better fleet management for example, requires real time information acquired from source. By integrating GPS/GIS with scheduling and routing technologies, it is possible to increase fleet utilization by 40%. By focusing on the total landed cost of a transaction, spot market methods to manage the delivery of raw materials to the point of production, aggregating buyer demand and minimizing stock piles of raw materials at the production plant can be used to significantly reduce production costs.