At its best, a supply chain operates like a well-oiled machine, working smoothly to get products from manufacturers and suppliers to customers as quickly as possible. At its worst, a supply chain can be a mess of bottlenecks that lead to empty shelves and customers turning to alternative products as they look to make do with what’s available.
While even a well-oiled machine will have a cog that faults occasionally, there are a few things you can do to avoid the most common causes of bottlenecks.
Here are six key tips to prevent bottlenecks in your supply chain:
- Communicate
Yes, it’s a simple one, but lack of proper communication is often a main contributor to bottlenecks. Whether it’s your own staff across departments, or different companies across your supply chain, encouraging communication on what’s happening can help keep everyone on the same page as they work towards the same goal.
Along with keeping everyone updated on what’s going on in the moment, effective communication among teams can help improve ways of doing things. Staff on the front lines can often come up with better and faster ways of performing certain tasks and processes that even the best software can’t spot, so it’s important to give your staff ways to communicate these ideas.
Of course, it’s also crucial to make sure that everyone is encouraged to speak up even if it’s with bad news - as the saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved, and when it comes to minimizing the impact on your supply chain, every minute counts.
- Embrace technology
Why do things the hard way if you don’t have to? With a range of software now available to help businesses with virtually every aspect of their supply chain, finding the right platform that gives you visibility across your whole supply chain is a gamechanger.
Having visibility levels up everything from monitoring stock levels with suppliers and in your warehouses, helping you make sure these numbers are properly reflected in your stores, to optimizing the routes each vehicle in your fleet takes, sending both drivers and customers updates in real time to keep deliveries on track.
- Hire the right amount of staff - and train them
Many businesses embrace technology and think that means they don’t need to invest in any more staff. In fact, the opposite is often true: the use of certain technology can help a business grow, which means more staff are actually needed to perform the other tasks that technology can’t take care of. An understaffed team can mean people get overloaded, which can lead to days off work to cope with stress and burnout, in turn causing delays in the supply chain.
In addition to having the right number of team members in place, it’s important to make sure that both new and existing staff are regularly trained on processes and operations so deliveries get out on time, and most importantly, safely.
- Security training
While we’re on the topic of staff and training, security is one area you cannot miss. Your supply chain is a closed network, meaning nothing gets out (i.e. packages getting lost) but also nothing gets in (i.e. illicit substances, banned or dangerous items).
To prevent security risks from happening, you’ll need to strictly train your staff to identify the signs that these events might happen, and what to do afterwards.
- Decentralize
Depending on the size of your operation and the markets in which it operates, it may be beneficial to set up multiple warehouses in different locations rather than centralizing your stock in one warehouse. Not only will this enable you to keep fulfilling orders from other locations in the event that any one warehouse is hit by an unexpected outage, but it can also help lower costs and improve customer satisfaction due to shorter delivery routes.
- Stay compliant
No one likes filling out paperwork, but let one thing slip and your entire operation could be shut down for days.
Whether it’s ensuring work health and safety regulations are followed, or properly storing your products, every i must be dotted and every t crossed so your business stays compliant - and operational.
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