Industry best practice supply chain management requires an integral approach of the whole supply chain: suppliers, internal production and distribution to customers. For companies producing or warehousing huge amounts of SKU’s (stock keeping units) the optimisation of the supply chain is a key aspect of their economic success. Companies such as Toyota, Dell and obviously all major transportation companies base their operations on superior supply chain management.


Inbound and outbound management
The first part to look at when optimising a supply chain is the internal process of handling incoming and outgoing goods. APMC helps clients to optimise inbound and outbound management. This means we look at how the company organises goods-in, stock replenishment, order, picking, control, consolidation and transportation of products, analyse the efficiency and then – if necessary – recommend improvements.


Production planning and steering strategy
For companies producing goods we then analyse how production is planned and steered. Basically we consider two approaches: production based on push-principles or production based on pull-principles.
When applying push-principles a client decides to centralize production planning and to calculate exactly when each production step has to be made.
When applying the pull-principle a client decides to de-centralize production planning looking mainly at the very last production step before delivery to customers. The last production steps guarantees a certain stock level. All production units before then adjust their stock levels according to this needs.


Production factors optimisation
A company can often save a lot of money when optimising employees’ work in warehouses and production facilities. APMC supports the client in analysing and improving how employees organise themselves, what incentives warehouse or production site managers provide to their staff etc.


Implementation operations controlling solutions
As in the general case of implementation controlling solutions (ICS) APMC offers support in scoping, planning and implementing specific operations controlling solutions. We focus on systems providing regular planning, analysis, information and decision maker knowledge tools.


Optimisation of suppliers
Supplier optimisation means to first look at the data: what are suppliers’ service levels (delivered products / ordered products)? What are terms and conditions by suppliers? What is there market power? Who and where are alternative suppliers? What are the switching costs? Etc.
Once these data are analysed APMC recommends possible improvements to clients.


Implementation of Just-in-Time (JiT) solutions
The key objective of Just-in-Time (Jit) solutions is to reduce or even eliminate costs related to warehousing goods. This means that goods are ordered or produced the closest possible to a customers order timing.
Just-in-Time solutions are possible under two conditions: optimal cooperation with suppliers and optimal production cycles. Often both conditions are strongly related to optimizing information systems. APMC supports clients to understand how this is done and to implement tailor-made solutions.


Optimisation of distribution network
When setting up a distribution network a company often relies on many factors: efficiency and reliability of transportation systems, sales capacities of retail channels, geographical coverage of distribution etc.
APMC helps client understanding every single key success factor with analysis and recommendations providing optimal decision maker knowledge.