Brochure

Industry Operating Backbones

Purpose-Built Industry
Operating Backbones
Todays highly complex global supply chains truly require a single version of the truth
providing full order and inventory visibility.

The Challenge of
Disconnected Systems
As we have witnessed over the years, ERP systems have
promised to provide this platform level capability, but in
reality they rarely do. If having an optimized order and
logistics operation is a core requirement for your business,
ERP solutions simply do not go far enough to provide this
type of operating backbone. In most cases best of breed
plug in demand management or logistics applications are
required to extend order visibility into both warehousing and
transportation activities.
Thus, over the years organizations have integrated their
ERP systems with WMS and TMS solutions, using custom
interfaces to update their order and inventory information
within their ERP systems.
However given todays complex supply networks,
organizations have found themselves with inventory spread
across the world supported by a global order fulfilment
network which is supported by a patchwork of inadequate
systems rather than a purpose built global operations
backbone.
Adding to the complexity, many corporations are outsourcing
their warehousing and transportation operations, using
different providers in various regions around the world.
Inventory and transportation movements are now being
executed across a growing number of warehousing and
transportation systems. As we all know this most likely

involves working with small transport operators, who may

only have a mobile phone to provide updates on delivery
progress.
Achieving an accurate record of orders and inventory in
real-time requires a single unifying cloud based system that
can be easily accessed by all supply network participants
via the internet. Furthermore, ease of use dictates that all
participants should only have to register for this network
once, rather than every underlying system supporting the
network.
It is a fact today that larger companies are often running more
than one ERP or multiple instances of a certain ERP due to
many reasons including acquisitions or system migrations.
How is it possible for any company participating in a complex
global supply network to ensure a consistent and reliable
view of both their order and logistics operations across
this patchwork of underlying systems or during periods of
transition, which can last for years?
Leveraging a supply network across an industry backbone
enables a new level of collaboration with both customers
and suppliers, supported from a systems viewpoint providing
significant benefits through real time information on demand
management and purchase order fulfilment.
For example, take a company that manufactures product
in the US based on components supplied from Indonesia.
Network collaboration means that as the supplies are
ready for dispatch in Indonesia, the US operation is notified
immediately.

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Brochure Industry Operating Backbones

This in-transit inventory can be tracked as being held in a
moving warehouse and is used to plan customer order
fulfilment, enabling deliveries to be planned with the
customer. This streamlined approach increases visibility,
enabling an improved delivery management service to the
customer.
Supply network information is typically spread across a
number of disparate systems, with no central process driving
a single version of the truth when it comes to global inventory
and order information.
Today it is possible to connect systems using a series of
bespoke interfaces, where one system is selected as the
system or record. This approach is, at best, inefficient as well
as difficult and costly to achieve. It also prevents organizations
from extending functionality to remain competitive in their
markets.
Creating a supply network or industry operating backbone
brings together information from various disparate systems
into a central demand management, inbound supply, logistics,
transportation and overall order tracking system which
provides the flexibility to grow with your business without the
costs of bespoke development.

How we can help

One Network provides both the platform and the purpose
built industry operating backbone that interoperates with
data from the various supply chain systems using standard
interfaces (APIs). Using various system interfaces, including
role-based user defined dashboards, customers, suppliers
and staff can view a single version of the truth based on, for
example, orders currently being fulfilled; forward orders;
stored inventory; and in transit inventory.
A key advantage to such an industry operating backbone
is that no longer do you have to change your processes
to accommodate the technology. One Networks unique
Tunable System of Control capability enables you to assign
system of record responsibility to each state and action in
a process to either our platform or another application.
The result being that our platform manages the end-to-end
processes, but where appropriate intervening steps can be
processed by preexisting systems. This embrace or replace
approach allows companies to leverage any local systems until

they require replacement, upon which time our platform can

take on increasing responsibilities.
Our industry backbones include a complete transactional
model that supports master data management and a
comprehensive list of transaction management and
process-based state machines. For further flexibility and
customization, we supply organizations with an SDK to
build new modules on top of our preexisting multi-party
transactional and execution modules as well as a module
store full of applications focused around planning, execution,
and transactional processing.
One Network will interoperate with most ERP and
logistics management software systems, providing the ETL
environment to load the required data sets. Many TMS
systems have no knowledge of the products and orders being
moved, they simply work at the consignment level. With One
Networks TMS, we can integrate with the legacy environment
and track at consignment, order and order line/product
levels.
The Industry Operating Backbone can provide additional
benefits as well. For example a consumer goods manufacturer
may configure the backbone to monitor the service
provisioning of their third party logistics provider. Not only
can the solution achieve that aim, but it could also be used
to enable regional product teams to promote products that
they actually have in stock in each region, thereby reducing
inventory levels and increasing sales.
From a cost perspective the backbone is deployed as a
fully hosted service that enables customers to adopt the
solution without a significant impact on their existing systems
infrastructure.
Addressing one industry need typically gives rise to further
requirements. Once you have a single up-to-date version
of the truth for your global inventory and supply network,
you are then ideally positioned to use that information for
inventory planning, generating stock movements, raising the
optimal supplier orders and driving the right demand forecast
to the manufacturing facilities.
Could your supply chain benefit from an Industry Operating
Backbone? It probably could.

One Network Enterprises. All rights reserved. | www.onenetwork.com | inquiries@onenetwork.com