No matter what its products, services, or specialization, every business has a supply chain. Materials, information, and finances flow through a process from raw materials or resources to finished products or services to delivery to the end user or customer. How well any business, but especially a young one, manages that flow can spell the difference between success and failure. The third paper in the Enterprise Benchmarks series, "Real Best Practices for Supply Chain Optimization," lays out a solid framework for supply chain optimization, detailing best practices that can help any type of business maximize performance in this area:
- Map the supply to chain to understand its components.
- Establish baseline measurements to develop performance metrics; consistently monitor performance against those metrics.
- Create a cost-focused, contingency-based supply chain growth model.
- Optimize procurement strategies and practices.
- Monitor inventory to reduce risk of obsolescence, damage, and other issues.
- Standardize processes and job functions to maximize productivity.
- Develop creative, size-appropriate solutions to transportation, distribution, and other logistical challenges.
- Package and ship in ways that are compliant with customer/end-user needs.
- Use technology to increase transparency, improve internal communication, and eliminate silos.
- Tap outside resources for additional help when needed.
Pared down to its essence, optimal supply chain management is about moving things from point A to point B in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible, and Ohio's Enterprise Appalachia is ideally suited to facilitate that proposition. Sixty percent of the U.S. population, 50 percent of the Canadian population, 62 percent of U.S. manufacturing plants, 59 percent of wholesale establishments, and 63 percent of retail establishments all lie within a 600-mile radius of Ohio. World-class systems create synergy between transportation, data and domestic and international export; extensive road, rail, water, and air transportation infrastructure provides businesses access to regional, national, and global markets.
With a history stretching back 150 years, Salem, Ohio-based Butech Bliss has advanced-design, reliable metal processing machines and equipment running in locations all around the world. Visionary strategic planning, the quality of its equipment, and its stellar reputation for customer service are important reasons behind the company's stable, globally competitive position in a tumultuous industry.
So, too, is the critical access to supply chain and markets its Enterprise Appalachia location provides, says Jock Buta, executive vice president of Butech Bliss. The company's location in the middle of the Steel Belt, which stretches from Chicago to Pittsburgh, provides access to numerous suppliers needed to support its niche business. It purchases components and specialized processes worth tens of millions of dollars a year from nearby suppliers, many in Northeast Ohio. Transportation infrastructure such as the new multimodal rail/truck/barge facility developed on the Ohio River at the Wellsville Intermodal Industrial Park gives Butech Bliss unfettered access to both domestic and international markets, helping to keep transportation costs in line and contributing to increased profitability. (Read more about Buta and Butech Bliss.)
Being located in Ohio's Enterprise Appalachia and the efficient logistics solutions that enables have been factors in ED MAP's success as well. From its 100,000-square-foot facility in Nelsonville, ED MAP provides cost-effective fulfillment and logistics strategies to insure that students, customers, and instructors get the tools they need to pursue a quality education. "Every day, we push about 3,000 boxes out of our warehouse, so being close to a large percentage of the U.S. population makes our customer service better, cheaper, and faster," Mark says. ED MAP can deliver to major publishers and more than half of the U.S. population within one to three days, using affordable ground delivery. "Our location in Ohio's Enterprise Appalachian Region has enabled ED MAP to achieve profitability more quickly," he says.
