A Three R Approach for Supply Chain Business Intelligence

Today, manufacturing enterprises are required to improve their competitive performance by establishing effective controls over the complex processes and datasets, both internal and external, which drive their business. At the internal level, mastery of this performance measurement can be assisted through the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Data Warehouses (DW) and appropriate report writing tools. These can integrate with other best-of-breed Executive Information Systems (EIS) components to create software platforms capable of delivering effective Business Intelligence (BI) that can support superior decision-making. However, at the external level, where there exists a larger degree of uncertainty, a plethora of isolated systems and commercial issues, such as data sensitivity and collaboration, can present formidable challenges. Within this paper we define what Small to Medium sized Enterprise (SME) management requires from supply chain performance and consider whether or not the desired corporate goals can be achieved through the use of effective use of IT-based BI frameworks alone. Through a range of case study implementations a process-orientated approach to effective supply chain BI execution, comprising of 3Rs: Right Quality, Right Time and Right Cost, is evaluated.