At the 27th Annual ARC Industry Leadership Forum 2023, which took place in Orlando – FL, Alex Pradhan, Product Strategy Leader at John Galt Solutions, shared her insights in an interview with Steve Banker, Vice President of Supply Chain Services at ARC Advisory Group.
The conversation started with Steve Banker pointing out that it would seem supply chain disruptions are easing in 2023. He asked Alex what her thoughts were on the current landscape, and whether things are now getting better in the world of supply chain management. In response, Alex pointed out that “we’re not out of the woods.” She brought attention to the fact that we continue to observe an accelerated pace of disruption, uncertainty and risks, requiring organizations to fundamentally shift the way they think about supply chain.
“Companies need to radically rethink about how they’re going to be moving in this new world. We’ve got a lot more data coming in, you have to be looking at new internal and external factors, and resiliency continues to be a big topic,” said Alex.
On the topic of supply chain agility and resiliency, Steve Banker asked Alex how these terms could be defined and differentiated from one another. Alex explained that from a technology perspective, resiliency is associated with the ability to model and factor all the different interdependencies in the supply chain, for a more fluid way to look at the trade-offs in the supply chain. Agility, on the other hand, refers to the ability to sense and respond and act a lot faster.
Alex added that the question of resiliency vs agility is perhaps not what we should be asking. She argued that a more relevant question to ask now is around resiliency vs efficiency, highlighting that it’s important to strike the balance between these two approaches.
“Many supply chains historically have been focused on being very efficient, focused on very functional ways of thinking – which is not a bad thing – but there needs to be a balance and they need to look at resiliency as well, and look at digital twins and what-if scenarios,” affirmed Alex.
Digital Supply Chain Twin
In the interview, Alex defined a digital supply chain twin, in its simplest form, as “a real-time virtual replica of your physical supply chain.” It captures all of the relationships and the interdependencies of the supply chain, allowing users to understand these interactions, and use scenarios to model and assess the different trade-offs to understand the impact of their decisions.
Alex explained that a digital supply chain twin is critical to building supply chain resilience, as it enables companies to gain end-to-end visibility of their supply chain network. With a comprehensive virtual replica of the physical supply chain, and the power to help predict future events, digital twins play a crucial role in predicting performance before decision making and execution.
Digital Transformation
Steve Banker asked how companies can achieve a full end-to-end digital transformation, to which Alex responded that a key element to innovation in the realm of supply chain digital transformation is to gain the ability to link technology, data, people and processes. This approach hinges on the ability to merge the physical and digital worlds, powered by the digital supply chain twin, which is especially important for companies at advanced stages of supply chain planning maturity.
“With the digital twin, we’re using very advanced analytics like AI and machine learning, leveraging scenarios and advanced concepts; but ultimately, it’s about being able to go outside the four walls of the organization. This idea of connecting, collaborating and orchestrating across the ecosystem – that’s really when we talk about digital transformation; to digitally transform radically the business model to generate value,” concluded Alex.
Speaker:
Alex Pradhan, Product Strategy Leader, John Galt Solutions
Moderator:
Steve Banker, Vice President Supply Chain Services, ARC Advisory Group
