Some thoughts on suppply chain control towers

1. Expanding the scope of Supply
Chain Control Towers
Supply Chain Control Towers in an agile organization
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

2. “Stuff” needs to be coordinated and driven to support Agile change.
It´s in the own interest of Supply Chain Control Towers to do that
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

3. ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Constant
Change
Frequent
change
Direction and
vision
Autonomous,
delegated
power
Two way
Communication
Skills

4. ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Learning Teaching
Make talent grow
Continuous change
Continuous adoption
Thrive of experience Discard experience
Put “smart” to work
A “supply chain control tower” runs more than a physical supply chain.
It runs a talent and idea supply chain

5. “Supply Chain Control Tower” isn´t just a matter of information technology and data processing. The core is
organization and culture.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Skills
Culture
Organisation
Individuals
Flesh and blood

6. Traditionally, the position of a supply chain control tower has been to monitor and orchestrate execution in relation to
operational targets. The tower was responsible for ensuring that what had been decided on operational level was what
happens and if there where deviations, feed those back to the operational decision process. The supply Chain Control Tower
organization was positioned at the bottom of the hierarchy, closer to execution than decision making. The link between
decision making and the tower when through the line management structure.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

7. ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
A “Supply Chain Control Tower” can be an operational tool for a command hierarchy. In such
a setup the control tower simply act as relay between operational decision making and execution.
Strategic
Tactical
Operational
Execution
Nature
of
decision
making

8. Even in the traditional state, the Supply Chain Control tower was expected to provide organization, (IT)
technology, methods and data to keep the supply chain running. Not as much, not as fast, not as smart and
not as synchronized as in the model emerging today but still the same stack of building blocks.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

9. See together Act together
Know together
Monitor Evaluate Orchestrate
LEAN
Processes
Physical Supply Chain
network
Transaction backbone
Analytics
Planning
ERP
Communication Integration platform
Collaboration platform
Channels IoT
B2C
Unstructured data (“Buzz & intelligence”)
B2B
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Skills
Culture
Organisation
Individuals
Flesh and blood

10. At its best, the traditional control tower acted within a rather stable set of operational directives provided out
of a yearly/quarterly/monthly decision process linked to supply chain planning.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

11. European Center of Supply Chain Information Architecture,
ECSCIA
Tactical (S&OP)
MPS MRP PP/DS
DRP
Forecast
SNO/SNP
Demand planning
ATP
Material planning
Capacity planning
Launch planning
(NPI)
Route planning
Promotion
planning
Product portfolio
planning
MEIO
CIP
“Invitation”
“Supply chain planning”
Strategic
Operational
Logistics
Execution

12. The organizational context of the supply chain control tower was the classic hierarchy, the old pyramid with a lot of middle
managers working under some “old guy”. There was a lot of communication handover points, a lot of interpretation between
the people who “knew what needed to be done” and the people actually doing it. As technology and method emerged, the
ratio between the layers changed, creating a growing, heavy middle layer on top of an operational base that grew leaner and
leaner.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

13. in the old hierarchy “career” and a “good days work” meant that “middle managers” working under “some old
guy“ had long meetings, made plans and then told people to execute according to those.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

14. Speed…. These days, the classical hierarchy has a hard time keeping up…. Several forces: people, tempo, data, culture,
technology and values, are driving change towards organizations with more direct contact between people, more autonomy,
more trust, more goals, less commands. Organizations need to move faster, people want to own tasks, take initiatives.
Organizations become flatter, radically flatter or more spherical.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

15. “Radical flat”
“Spherical”
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Hierarchy

16. Transitioning into “flat” or “spherical” brings people closer together. The overhead and delay of hierarchical
communication is removed through information transparency. A culture of sharing and learning emerges. Teamwork grows,
a lot less of “them” and a lot more of “us”. A better state to be in when dealing with unpredictable change and fast
reaction to opportunity.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

17. ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Compared to “Hierarchy”, “Radical flat” and “Spherical” reduces distance in and enables direct
communication.
Thinking “Spherical” brings people closer and allows more dynamics that thinking “flat”.
“Sphere” is a better fit to “Agile” than “Radical flat”

18. Flattening the organization and empowering people in it does not only allow for speed in a fixed structure. It also allows for
continuous change of that structure. Teams form at reshape dynamically to best meet the opportunity at hand. Obviously,
this challenges old rules for how authority controls activity and breaks old reward systems. It also enables new alternatives
to grow. People are no longer waiting for action, waiting for change with an assigned, constraining box. They seek change,
find new “boxes” and the react to events as the power of “new digital” empowers them to do so.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

19. ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
What team am I in today?
People finds work where work needs to be done.
Free but still in an organization

20. The same forces that drive organizational change also drive changes to organization, system and data processing for
strategic, tactical and operational supply chain planning. The change leads decision processes to transition from being
sequential and cyclical towards being parallel and continuous, a change enabled by the opportunities of in memory
computing, connectivity and digital processing power (AI, ML and whatever other acronyms that can be used for the art of
applying statistics and probability to data to help make decisions).
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

21. Operational
Tactical
Strategic
Nature of the
decision
Time horizon
Operational
Tactical
Strategic
Nature of the
decision
Time horizon
Traditional
view
”New” Reality
From sequential to parallell planning
European Center of Supply Chain Information Architecture,
ECSCIA

22. The same factors that motivate organizations in general to go “spherical” also motivates transition from
traditional S&OP & IBP towards “Converged Business Planning”
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

23. As organizations change from hierarchical pyramids to spherical adhocracies,
planning process, tools and information structures follow to support
Sales
Supply
Dev
Finance
Sales
Supply
Dev
Finance
Sales
Supply
Dev
Finance
S&OP , scheduled sequential ….CBP, digital, egalitarian,
bottom up, continuous
….Cover the “transition period”
with “IBP….” , frequent, interactive
European Center of Supply Chain Information Architecture,
ECSCIA

24. So, to the point. Today as always before, the world is changing. Nothing new about that. There has always been change but
powered by new technology and the fact that we are consuming are planet at an unsustainable rate, change happens faster
than before. Change happens faster than the decision-making processes in a traditional hierarchical organization can
handle. Change happens continuously. Change has never have been a planned & controlled event and it certainly is less so
today. Continuous change call for continuous adoption of “new” & “different”.
The organizational response is to accelerate adoption of flatter and spherical organizations where people (and machines) can
act more autonomously. “Smart” needs to be given room to work and “smart” needs to grow. Learning needs to be a
permanent ongoing process. People and organization need to be geared up for learning and teaching. People and
organization need use every experience to be smarter and be prepared to radically discard experience that is in the way of
change.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

25. ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Learning Teaching
Make talent grow
Continuous change
Continuous adoption
Thrive of
experience
Discard
experience
Put “smart” to work

26. For Supply Chain Control Towers this means stepping into territories that have previously been owned by centers of
excellence, Operational development teams, BI teams, project teams, management teams, Agile value stream teams and
whatever other “teams”.
Old state
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

27. ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Supply chain
Execution
Process
development
Data
processing
Technology
provisioning
BI and
analytics
teams
Operations
development
teams
Centers of
excellence
Control
towers
Control
towers
How to position Supply Chain Control towers relative other functions?
Operational
value streams
Development
value streams
Data science
teams

28. New state
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

29. ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture
Supply chain
Execution
Process
development
Data
processing
Technology
provisioning
BI and
analytics
teams
Operations
development
teams
Centers of
excellence
How to position Supply Chain Control towers relative other functions?
Operational
value streams
Development
value streams
Data science
teams
Control towers

30. The control tower needs to transition from the limited scope of linking operational decision making to execution and
expand into tactical and strategic processes as these change from being sequential and cyclical towards being parallel and
continuous.
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture

31. European Center of Supply Chain Information Architecture,
ECSCIA
Strategic perspective
Tactical perspective
Target setting &
dimensioning of resource
framework
Translates strategic
framework to ”How to
best do it” on tactical
level of detail
Translates tactical
framework to plans on
operational level
Free to independently
decide on changes
within tactical
framework
Free to independently
decide on changes
within strategic
framework
Fast, synchronized interaction
Fast, synchronized interaction
Operational perspective
Execution

32. • Companies set and drive towards goals, control towers manage the path to get there
• Communicate clear vision
• Change is constant, control towers listens and redirect
• Fail fast
• Change is normal
• Power is more efficient (faster and targeted right) when it is distributed
• Distribute challenges and responsibility
• Autonomous
• Adapt to local
• Know, plan, understand
• Share and communicate
• Skills
• Train, recruit
• Foster a spirit of knowledge acquisition and sharing
• Manage information
ECSCIA, European Centre of Supply Chain Information
Architecture