6 tips for reducing your supply chain hiccups

Even in the best of times, there always seems to be one or two hang-ups in the supply chain that need a manager's attention - and the past several months have hardly been the best of times. Increasingly, companies are realizing their supply chain vulnerabilities and moving to address them as best they can amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

If you haven't taken similar steps for your organization, you may be leaving some efficiency and flexibility on the table. The following changes should help you stay the course no matter what issues arise:

1) Cut your reliance on manual data

The more your internal systems rely on your workers to input data manually, the more difficult it is to see where you really stand or what might be going wrong, according to DemandCaster. For that reason, you need to automate data tracking and interpretation as much as you possibly can, and as soon as possible. While that takes some significant financial investment and a lot of time to get your operations up to speed, the efficiency you gain means the efforts more than pay for themselves over time.

2) See if you can mix up your ordering style

If you increasingly find yourself running into shipping delays these days, one of the simplest ways to fix that is to examine how you've ordered the shipments that got held up, DemandCaster added. For instance, if you're relying on one big order every once in a while, it may be wise to switch to a greater volume of smaller shipments. A change that simple can go a long way.

It's critical to always have a supply chain plan.

3) Increase your relationships

Along similar lines to changing order types as needed, you might also want to think about the benefits of diversifying or shortening your supply chains for those orders, according to MCL. That way, even if one supplier can't necessarily get you what you need in the timeframe you're looking for, there is probably someone else (perhaps more locally based) who can.

4) Work more closely with your suppliers on reducing lead times

If your most persistent problem in the supply chain is that it takes your orders too long to arrive, you might be wise to start incentivizing suppliers, MCL said. If they can routinely hit their deadlines, providing them with a bonus could make them work that much harder to prioritize your organization's needs ahead of other partners.

5) Create backup and emergency plans

The fact of the matter is that even when things are going smoothly in the industry as a whole, you might still run into delays and hiccups that require you to pivot to a Plan B, according to Big Commerce. The question, then, is whether you have a Plan B - or, for that matter, Plans C, D, E, F and G - so that when things inevitably go sideways, you can rely on a great fallback.

6) Look at your vulnerabilities and try to reduce them

Finally, if you find that you keep running into similar problems - or even the same ones - over and over, that might actually be a "you" problem, Big Commerce said. You should therefore review your internal plans and potential vulnerabilities so you can smooth over persistent issues.