What Is Supply Chain Mapping? How To chart Your Supply Chain

Getting everything you require for a birthday event is relatively straightforward. You can grab a cake and snacks from the grocery store, decorations from the event supply store, and beverages from the wholesale liquor store. But a bunch of supplies a event does not make. You require to strike the correct tone with the music, bring out the cake at the correct period, and ensure everyone’s drinks are flowing all night. Anyone can host one great occurrence, but hosting birthday parties that friends look forward to every year? That’s a skill.

Regularly shipping fantastic products to your customers can be a lot like hosting incredible parties. Sure, it’s never been easier to source whatever you require—be it raw materials, parts, or finished wholesale goods—but putting it all together (over and over again) is the real test. Luckily, supply chain mapping can assist you get a grip on all the moving parts.

What is supply chain mapping?

Supply chain mapping is the procedure of assembly, organizing, and understanding the intricate business ecosystem of suppliers, your suppliers’ suppliers, and the many logistical mechanisms that require to function for products to reach your customers.

The supply chain chart is a visual representation of all this information. Relevant data might include where suppliers are located, where their suppliers are located, and how long it takes for critical materials and components to reach their intended destinations. It can also include the costs associated with the many subparts of the sourcing procedure and the supply chain issues that can affect or delay the flow of goods.

“To me, supply chain mapping is about visually understanding each part of the procedure, from the instant the raw materials are sourced to the final delivery to customers,” says Steve Schwartz, the founder and master tea blender at Art of Tea, a subscription retailer of fine teas from all over the globe. “It helps shatter down every step, so you can track how goods, information, and finances shift through your structure.”

Why is supply chain mapping significant?

• business productivity
• expense reduction
• hazard management
• lawful operation
• Transparency

There’s worth in any tiny business owner having a bird’s-eye view of their business’s supply chain operations. Being up to date on your supply chain chart can assist your ecommerce business in the following ways:

business productivity

Supply chain mapping gives you a obvious view of your entire supply network, helping you determine both efficiencies and bottlenecks in the procedure and quickly make adjustments. For example, by researching where your suppliers’ suppliers are located and the estimated period it takes for essential materials to trip from one place to the next, you can better approximate manufacturing and delivery times. With a obvious picture, you can view where your supply chain might falter if one supplier experiences delays.

“The mapping procedure gives us insight into key areas like inventory levels, supplier act, and potential delays,” Steve says. “It helps us spot challenges early, like delays in sourcing, so we can make adjustments and maintain a steady supply chain.”

expense reduction

By identifying inefficiencies and opportunities for advancement, businesses can use supply chain mapping to save money. For instance, supply chain mapping can significantly reduce costs involved with inventory management and warehousing. By understanding how quick products shift through your structure, you can better projection storage needs and avoid spending on excess space.

hazard management

Having a detailed chart of your entire supply chain helps you anticipate potential risks to the flow of goods—things like natural disasters, changes in customer demand, political instability, or labor shortages. For example, if your chart shows that you depend exclusively on one supplier for a critical component in one of your manufactured products and that supplier is located in a state frequently hit by hurricanes in the late summer and fall months, you can explore diversifying your sourcing for August through October.

lawful operation

Buyers, sellers, importers, exporters, and manufacturers of goods are subject to a combination of complicated laws and regulations at the local, state, and federal levels. Supply chain mapping is significant for understanding how your sourcing may already comply with such rules, and what changes you may require to make to ensure lawful operation. This can assist you avoid both costly fees and legal penalties that can grind business operations to a halt.

Transparency

Aside from regulatory concerns, there are ethical and environmental concerns to sourcing that—while not legally compulsory—can be significant to your brand image. A lot of customers place a additional expense on sustainable and ethical supply chain practices. They also worth knowing exactly where the products they’re buying came from. Understanding all the nooks and crannies of your supply chain chart allows you to fully and honestly communicate your sourcing practices to your customers. Over period, this can substantially enhance customer satisfaction.

“At Art of Tea, we focus on ensuring traceability and standard from the source,” Steve says. “We chart out everything, from where our ingredients arrive from to how they’re processed, stored, and shipped. We document the whole trip to maintain transparency.”

How to chart your supply chain

1. Identify key stakeholders
2. comprehend stakeholder relationships
3. shatter out costs and timelines
4. Visualize the supply chain
5. borrowing technology

Your line of business, geographic scope of your sourcing, and customer delivery expectations all affect the complexity of your supply chain chart. Although these variables differ from business to business, these guidelines propose a starting point for mapping your supply chain:

1. Identify key stakeholders

recognize who you’re dealing with. Document all of your suppliers, wholesalers, distributors, and other companies that touch your production, storage, and distribution processes. Consider documenting their suppliers, sub-wholesalers, and sub-distributors if you’re able to obtain that information as well.

No require to connect all the dots just yet. “Keep things straightforward at the beginning,” Steve advises. “Just having a obvious visual or spreadsheet of your key suppliers and timelines can be a game changer.”

2. comprehend stakeholder relationships

Once you’ve organized the key players into a single spreadsheet, code them according to function, their connection to your business, and their connection to each other. For example, a direct-to-buyer (DTC) clothing business might organize its stakeholders into the following categories, with numbers to represent their position in the production procedure:

• Raw cotton suppliers (1)
• Fabric manufacturers (2)
• Garment makers (3)
• Distribution centers (4)
• Transportation nodes (5)
• Shipping companies (6)

3. shatter out costs and timelines

Once you’ve populated your data platform with all of your stakeholders and detailed their relationships within the supply chain, you can commence drilling down into the data. For example, document how long it takes for Supplier A to ship Component X to Manufacturer B, and how much money your business must front to keep that procedure going. These critical data points will inform how you visualize your supply chain.

4. Visualize the supply chain

make a visual representation of your supply chain, either on document or with computer graphics. It might look like a linear timeline or maybe a pattern. It could even be a literal chart of all the locations where your materials and components are sourced, annotated with timelines, delivery routes, costs, and contingency plans to mitigate risks.

Given the complexity of this job, you might consider hiring an infographic designer or data visualization specialist to assist you effectively organize all of the data and now it in a readable, visually appealing manner.

5. borrowing technology

A variety of tools can assist you digitize your supply chain maps. Digital software tools like Sourcemap and ecommerce apps like 8Data are interactive and adaptable, and they often propose a variety of features that permit real-period data collection, tracking, and analysis. “Today, we use technology to track everything in real period,” Steve says, “which helps us manage a larger and more dynamic supply chain.”

Steve notes there are likely to be major strides in supply chain mapping recent concept as recent technologies emerge and existing technologies are refined. “Technology, like AI and blockchain, will play a large role in the upcoming of supply chains,” he says, “especially for improving transparency and real-period tracking.”

ordinary challenges of supply chain mapping

Building a workable supply chain chart is feasible for any ecommerce business owner. As noted above, you’ll require to put in some period and attempt to collect, organize, and visualize the relevant data. However, many business owners face challenges when mapping their supply chains. Here are a few to keep in mind, as well as some solutions for getting around them:

Scattered supply chain management systems

Supply chains are complicated and involve a lot of different parties. Businesses sometimes have to depend on these different parties to accurately (and even manually) input the essential supply chain data so it can be centralized and adequately assessed. Human error or delays in reporting can factor large problems here, but supply chain automation tools propose a answer. These tools automatically collect and record the essential data from points on the entire chain, such as fulfillment data and shipping times.

Lack of transparency throughout the chain

Some of your suppliers may be unable or unwilling to distribute their own supplier data—an essential part of any comprehensive supply chain chart. A lack of transparency in your suppliers’ supply chains might be a red flag that those suppliers are not sourcing raw materials or components ethically or sustainably. If a associate is consistently unable to provide the data you require to fully chart out your supply chain, it may be period to seek out another supplier who can meet your data needs.

impoverished communication within the chain

Supply chain visibility is only feasible when all stakeholders are communicating with each other effectively. If a supplier consistently fails to provide timelines or doesn’t identify inefficiencies in the structure, it can outcome in returns-killing supply chain disruptions and delays.

To avoid breakdowns or outdated data, regularly check in with your suppliers, distributors, and other supply chain partners to inquire questions and seek feedback to identify areas for advancement. “construct powerful relationships with your suppliers; this can provide you flexibility when things don’t leave as planned,” Steve says. “Human relationships and depend have helped us in our 20 years of business in the tea space and will for the next 20-plus years to arrive.”