Using Big Data to track procurement needs and improve supply chain management

Project Description and Scope

Kenco Logistic Services LLC (KLS) or Kenco is a logistic company that provides integrated logistics solutions. Kenco is specialized in material handling services, warehousing, value-addition, distribution and fulfillment, and transportation management. The company’s headquarters is in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Kenco was founded by Jim Kennedy Jr. and Sam Smartt in August 1950. It was initially called Cherokee Warehouses, which was a single 100,000 square-foot warehouse based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. However, in 1967, Cherokee Warehouses was renamed to Kenco after the owners signed their first dedicated contract warehousing arrangement. As of 2015, the company’s capacity had increased significantly and was managing a warehouse space of over 30 million square feet in North America alone. Currently, the company is headed by Jane Kennedy Greene as its CEO.

Business Needs

Historically, differences in pricing, brand recognition, and product feature were enough to differentiate many products in the market. However, with the continued commoditization of many products, there is a need for companies to identify better ways to distinguish themselves. Product innovation and brand equity no longer allow companies higher prices in the market. Kenco is placed in a market where there are increased competition and price pressures. To compete effectively in this competitive market, it has to redesign its supply chain and review the use of technology. Cutting costs and improving logistics operations revolving around component acquisition, manufacturing costs, material management, logistics operations, inventory management, and logistics operations can all be found from data from Sales and operation planning, strategic sourcing and procurement, product lifecycle management and transportation/distribution management. These data are obtained from monitoring and tracking devices (IoT devices and RFID systems), billions of items in the inventory, millions of customer transactions per hour.

Objectives

The objectives of this project incorporate the use of Big data analytics in tracking procurement needs and improving supply chain management.

The right side of using Big Data Analytics

There are significant impacts of Big data analytics on the supply chain. It offers greater data accuracy and clear insights leading to more contextual intelligence across supply chains.  Here are some of the ways Kenco Logistic Services will benefit from incorporating Big data analytics;

1. Better transportation planning
2. Enhance End-to-End Visibility

• Advanced Planning and Forecasting

1. Improved Capacity Planning
2. Improve Customer Service

Scope

Major Deliverables

1. SC systems integration will improve communication with suppliers and linking the supply chain system to market needs.
2. Improved forecasting/decision making.

• Reduce expenditure on human capital.

1. Security and governance. It comes with legal regulations for protecting data privacy.
2. Improve risk management efforts
3. Operational efficiency

• Customer orientation; it captures customer views, predicts their needs, and thus making it easy to customize products.

DURATION

Major milestones

Incorporating Data analytics in Kenco Logistic Services will take a considerable amount of time. This is because the company handles millions of transactions around the globe, making it have a massive amount of data (Petabytes of data).

Critical assumptions

1. Key project members are availability
2. Key project members are skilled and will give the expected performance

• Our key vendor will deliver project requirements on time

1. The project activities will be carried out as per the scheduled dates

Constraints

Risks

Resources