“Supply Chain as a Service could solve multiple business problems in asingle oering and help create a more demand-driven environment,which allows companies to adjust more quickly to end customedemand.” - Institute for Supply Management (ISM)

orward-thinking leaders are embracing on-demand support models, like Supply Chain as a Service, for their day-to-day business operations to realize the same proven results we’ve experienced asconsumers. Supply Chain as a Service is empowering leaders with a compelling strategic lever to gaingreater company agility and profitability, and presents a rare opportunity in business to reduce costs whileenhancing organizational capabilities. If adopted, this new way of doing business is poised to save, not costcompanies money.

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Today, we can have nearly anything at our fingertips with the clickof a button. On-demand products and technologies have broughtus massive time savings. Product costs, too, are reduced alongwith purchase risk. Why then can’t we have these sameon-demand benefits applied at our companies? Today you can.

Your Answer to Greater Agility & ProfitabilitySupply Chain as a Service

Insight

Think BIG. “Minimizing risk whilemaximizing reward is a criticalpractice when it comes to optimizingyour supply chain.” – AmericanProduction and Inventory ControlSociety (APICS)

Innovation

1. Project Test Case Small projects and new products offer excellent low-risk test cases for SCaaS to prove model results to senior leadership

2. Internal Buy-In Explain short- and long-term goals with your team to ensure full support and generate the best results

3. Technology Synergies SCaaS providers have software tools that provide better visibility into project management

4. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) Bring in SMEs to develop and implement processes your team can manage, instead of consuming resources to learn new skill sets

5. Staffing Mix Adjust internal employee mix to support ongoing core business needs and use SCaaS for supply chain need spikes to realize more savings

Ways to realize value now

Day-to-day supply chain management such as developing andlaunching new products and executing continuous improvementprojects is critical to the ongoing success of your company.Unfortunately, it’s challenging to balance traditional expensivefixed-cost investments in people, software, facilities, equipment, tooling,inventory, fulfillment and logistics. In a predictably unpredictablecompetiticompetitive global economy, it’s too time consuming and risky to lead,manage and execute your supply chain alone.

Economic headwinds from tariffs to pandemics to recessions have ledto an increasingly volatile market requiring enhanced supply chainexpertise to navigate. Ongoing business trends from eCommerce to lobal sourcing to drop shipping have increased supply chain complexity,requiring precision supply chain execution to profit. Considering thisenvironment, perceptive leaders are focusing more on core companycapabilities and pacapabilities and partnering with outside firms for non-core ones,resulting in more virtual enterprises with expanded overall capabilities.

Customers’ desire for accelerated new product innovation is furtherpushing leaders to compress timelines calling for new, more agileapproaches to accomplish more in less time. Lastly, cloud, mobile andartificial intelligence software technologies are affording leaders moreproductive “pay as you go” on-demand support options.

Progressive leaders are moving beyond simply outsourcing parts andnon-core services to partnering with a newer breed of business processoutsourcing (BPO) and technology enabled services providers toenhance capabilities, shorten product time to market, foster innovationand leverage variable cost structures to lower costs.

Waves of these types of service providers are disrupting markets fromtransportation (Uber) to hospitality (AirBnB), and now supply chain.Engaging on-demand “X as a Service” strategic partners to executeportions of one’s day-to-day business operations – from accounting tosupply chain – is now accelerating across automotive, heavy truck,building products, consumer products and many additional industries.Small Small to midmarket companies can now acquire world-classcapabilities at a fraction of the cost.

Trends Driving Adoption

6. On-Demand Support Use SCaaS for periodic supply chain needs like supplier plant audits or supplier quality support

7. Boost Process Capacity Activities such as supplier identification and qualification are well suited for SCaaS and can free up your team’s time

8. Buying Power Dramatically reduce costs and increase supplier engagement by capitalizing on the volume buying power of SCaaS

9. Rapid Response Capability Add a support team in as little as 24 hours to manage through sudden industry and economic shifts

10. Fresh Perspectives Reduce the impact of group think by periodically engaging SCaaS teams to review strategies and operations

Ways to realize value nowWhat is Supply Chain as a Service?

Variable Cost Support

SCaaS is an on-demand “technology enabled managed service,”combining experienced professionals with cloud-based productivitysoftware to support all or part of a company’s supply chain. A virtualSCaaS team partners with a company to execute procurement, supplierquality, production control, manufacturing, warehousing, orderfulfillment and logistics operations.

SCaaS offers businesses a flexible service model to attain virtualeconomies of scale on day one without the up-front investment. Supplychain resources are determined based on an organization’s needs andthey can scale as the company grows instead of recruiting andonboarding full-time employees. This innovative approach allowscompanies to realize lower and variable cost structures using proventechnology and systems, and technology and systems, and to gain instant scalability to generate upto a 4x ROI while freeing up valuable time to focus on customers andnew product development.

A technology enabled managed services, “Supply Chain as a Service”,business model is a mix of fixed and variable costs, and scales to thecustomer’s needs on demand to reduce supply chain managementcost, time and risk while ensuring consistent alignment. It’s comprisedof two fees, one for managed services and another for delivery, andcloud-based productivity software empowers teams to be more agile,lowering supply chain task costs.lowering supply chain task costs.

Because of the flexible ongoing support model, there’s no need to hirefull-time supply chain team members or purchase supply chainsoftware, which reduces fixed costs. Managed services providersaccomplish this by optimizing fixed-cost support via one reoccurringfee for managed services that remains constant. This protectscustomers from downside risk (lower-volume forecasts) by loweringthe up-fthe up-front investment and overhead.

In addition, managed services providers protect customers’ upside riskby attaching the execution of supply chain (purchase of parts, etc.) to apercentage of costs to coordinate project needs with the necessarysupport. This creates short- and long-term alignment by providing feweror more resources as a project may dictate. Lastly, managed servicesproviders utilize their established global supply base and part-buyingpower power to further reduce customer cost, time and risk.

William CraneFounder & CEOwilliam.crane@industrystar.com

Dr. Sime Curkovic, Ph.D.Director, Supply Chain Innovationsime.curkovic@industrystar.com

Tony LancioneVice President, Supply Chain Solutionstony.lancione@industrystar.com

industrystar.com

(734) 794-3072

4370 Varsity Dr Suite AAnn Arbor, MI 48108

IndustryStar Solutions

We are an on-demand supply chainservices and software technologycompany passionate about partneringwith companies to bring innovativeand disruptive products to market thatwill have a positive impact on theworld.world.

Company Overview

Future ways to realizevalue

Customers, managed services providers, and suppliers can allcollaborate in real time using cloud software to exchange part costs,lead times, and technical requirements, accelerating product timelines.And customer engineering teams can work together in productivitytools like Automated Plan For Every Part (AutoPFEP) to develop andoptimize future generation products. The customer’s cross-functionalteams can also submit teams can also submit requests for specific supply chain support – e.g.,supplier technical assistance and one-off purchases – via Agile ProjectManagement software.

To make repeat indirect, service part, and maintenance repair andoperations (MRO) purchases, customer teams can place orders in amobile software application using a designated smartphone or tabletdevice at any customer location. The SCaaS team then ensures orderavailability, checks for optimal pricing, and leverages its buying power toreduce costs while delivering consistent and timely supply forcuscustomers. The ability to utilize world-class supply chain professionals,processes and technology puts growing companies on a level playingfield with larger competitors.

SCaaS helps organizations improve agility and profitability byexperiencing the same on-demand conveniences we enjoy asconsumers. Its flexible, on-demand support model better positionscompanies to contract during economic downturns and scale duringupswings, leading to quickly realized benefits in cost and time, and afoundation for lower-risk growth. The net result: partnering with a SCaaSmanaged semanaged services provider saves businesses money while fostering asupply chain competitive advantage.

Foster a Competitive Advantage

How It WorksOnce a customer decides to move forward with SCaaS, they’reassigned a Program Manager and the managed services providerinitiates support to execute supply chain operations. To reduceonboarding risk, a managed services provider should follow astandardized process for transitioning operations – i.e., a four-stepprocess, to assess, set up, launch and deliver a customer’s productidea idea to production. Program Managers typically host weekly supplychain leadership meetings to summarize the prior week’saccomplishments, plans for the current week and for future.