Supply Chain Navigator

The Supply Chain Navigator provides an overview of the supply chain. The supply chain covers the order network from the customer order through manufacturing orders and distribution orders down to purchase orders.

The Supply Chain Navigator enables a delay analysis through the entire supply chain. The Supply Chain Navigator is designed to fit the level of detail that is required in all types of analytic situations. The view can be customized to display the whole network or only parts of the network. Several symbols and colors highlight the areas of special interest and provide a quick overview of the network. To analyze the constraining orders, using drill-down, you can go directly from the overview to order details.

The display of the entire order network is based on the selected orders from the Orders Report or other reports. The selected orders are displayed in bold and in black. If there is more than one order, the order networks are separated by a bold black line. If the selected item is included in more end items they are separated by a gray dotted line.

On the Primary behavior tab, you can select how much of the order network to display. The starting point can be the selected order and then down through the order network or alternative the starting point can be up to the customer order or end-item order and then down through the order network. There is several options to hide unimportant elements in the order network.

On the Secondary behavior tab graphics can be activated for latest start/end, demand/supply times, planned end before pull-up and earliest supply date.

On the Columns 1 and Columns 2 behavior tabs, you can select the network, order or operation fields to display. You can define the number of fields to display and select the fields and their display sequence. These columns are calculated in the Supply Chain Navigator.

On the Sorting behavior tab, you can select the sorting on top level in the order network and sorting on sub-levels in the order network.

Using supply chain navigator for delay analysis

There are three causes for delay:
  1. Delay in external supplies (Critical materials past latest start)
  2. Lack of capacity (Bottlenecks)
  3. Lack of lead-time (Past late start)

To analyze the delay reasons, examine the whole order network and look for possible errors. This is exactly what the Supply Chain Navigator helps the user to do in a visual and intuitive way.

Component order can be linked to several order networks and latest start/end on component orders is inherited from the parent order with the earliest latest start. When analyzing delay in one specific order network it is necessary on component orders to compensate for offset buffer in the order network being analyzed compared to latest start/end on the component order. This offset is labeled "Network buffer" and is unique for each order network.

Example of how Network buffer is calculated:
  1. Order A is the selected order.
  2. Order C is a part of A's network.
  3. Order B is not a part of the network, but uses materials from order C and determines latest end on order C.
  4. Network buffer = Latest end from B - Latest end from A

If the difference between Latest end on order A and Latest end on order B is 3 days, a Delay analysis of the order network with order A as the top order shows that order C has a Network buffer of 3 days. The network buffer is used in the Delay analysis to calculate the Network delay. By definition, the Network buffer is always zero on Top Order.

These values are calculated by the Supply Chain Navigator calculates and can be displayed as columns:
  • Network buffer

    This value is calculated as the difference between Latest End on the order and the Latest End seen from the selected network. The Network buffer is accumulated through the network, for example, if an order on level 2 has a Network buffer of 5 days and a delivering order on level 3 has an additional Network buffer of 2 days, then the level 3 order has an accumulated Network buffer of 5 + 2 = 7 days.

  • Network delay

    This value shows how many days the order is delayed when taking the Network buffer into consideration, for example, Delay minus Network buffer.

  • Delay before pull-up

    This value shows the total delay for individual orders in days before scheduling and after pull-up is conducted. This information can be used to see whether orders are on the critical path or are pulled-up to the parent order. This is the case when the delay is significantly smaller than the Total delay.

  • Past late start

    This value shows the number of days that the order is delayed in advance, for example, Start of Plan minus Latest start. The Past latest start delay is added to the delay of the operations. An order that has a Past latest start date cannot be completed on the scheduled shifts without being delayed, even if these orders are considered individually as the only order being produced.

  • Delay on external supplies

    This value shows that external supplies contribute to the delay on individual orders. You can use this information to see if there is a supplier problem or an internal capacity problem.

  • Total capacity delay

    This value shows the value for the operation with the largest contribution to the delay.

  • Maximum capacity delay

    This value shows and the operations total contribution to the delay of individual orders.

  • Operation

    This value identifies the operation with the maximum contribution to the delay due to capacity constraint.

  • Warning

    An 'L' in this column shows that an operation is locked on time (status 15, 17, 20 or 22) or has a forced start. You can check the Sequencing status or the Forced start field on the Operation Maintenance panel. The delay is calculated from the locked operation and forward. Earlier delays are irrelevant.

Symbols and buttons

See the symbol and button tooltips in the application.