Dashboards show variance without indicating the decision, owner or useful deadline.
Supply Chain leadership guide
Build a control tower focused on decisions, not visibility alone
Select the events, exceptions, ownership and horizons that enable action on the promise.
For: Supply chain, planning, logistics, transport, commerce and IT leadersWhat to clarify before discussing a solution
Which exceptions deserve an alert, who can act and within what horizon?
The answer does not lie in an isolated feature: it is built by connecting rules, actors, data and evidence.A cockpit limited to actionable signals, connected to escalation rules and outcome measurement.
Four decisions to make before configuration
These decisions make the scope testable and prevent structural choices from being discovered during the project.
Choose which promises to protect first
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Define threshold, horizon and owner for each exception
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Connect each alert to a possible action
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Measure handling and its effect
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
A readable end-to-end flow
Scope is not a list of modules. It is a chain of events, ownership and decisions.
1Customer promise
2Decision horizon
3Actionable exception
4Owner and escalation
5Measurement loop
In the first scoping
- One representative flow and its useful variants
- Authoritative events and minimum data
- Roles, decisions and escalation times
- Acceptance criteria and baseline measurement
To sequence in waves
- Additional sites, activities or populations
- Rare variants that do not condition the pilot
- Automations whose rule is not yet stable
- Advanced dashboards after source reliability
To decide explicitly
- Choose which promises to protect first
- Define threshold, horizon and owner for each exception
- Connect each alert to a possible action
- Measure handling and its effect
From direction to measured improvement
- 1Navigator
- 2Personalised review
- 3Scoping workshop
- 4Wave-based deployment
- 5KPI measurement
Each stage produces a decision or evidence reusable in the next. Deployment remains business-led and verifiable.
Measure to decide, not to fill a dashboard
Every KPI needs a definition, a source, a cadence and an associated decision.
KPIFormulaSourceDecision
OTIFOn-time, in-full deliveries ÷ total deliveriesOrders, shipments and proof of deliveryPrioritise the causes that weaken the customer promise
Service rateDemand served to commitment ÷ total demandDemand, commitments and actualsAlign priority, capacity and promise
Order cycle timeAvailability time − validation timeOrder, allocation, picking and shippingIdentify the link slowing the promise
Decision lead timeDecision date − signal dateAlerts, decisions and actionsShorten the path from signal to action
06 · Business scenario
A cockpit that closes the loop
- Situation
- A supply chain has many alerts but cannot tell which ones genuinely change service.
- Approach
- The pilot selects three major exceptions, defines horizons, owners and actions, then measures decision time and impact.
- Target outcome
- Visibility becomes a decision and learning mechanism.
Useful answers before the first discussion
01Where should we start in practical terms?
Choose a representative scope spanning “Customer promise” and “Decision horizon”, then document one normal case and one frequent exception. The first flow should be important enough to matter but contained enough to observe end to end.
02Do all existing systems need replacing?
No. Scoping starts with decisions, authoritative events and ownership. It then determines what should be retained, integrated, replaced or simply better governed, wave by wave.
03What data should be prepared before a workshop?
Prepare a few real cases, the volumes shaping the operation, the main variance reasons and the sources used to measure OTIF. The quality of examples matters more than the quantity of documents.
04How should the right pilot scope be chosen?
Choose a scope with an available owner, accessible data, a meaningful exception and a measurable outcome. Avoid both an overly simple case that proves nothing and an overly broad scope that dilutes learning.
05How can scope changes during the project be limited?
Make assumptions, interfaces, variants, exceptions and acceptance criteria explicit. Every new request can then be classified: essential to the wave, suitable for a later wave, or outside the objective. Discussion focuses on impact rather than intuition.
Next step
Turn this guide into a personalised review
Complete Navigator to position your context, then use the review as the starting point for a scoping workshop.
- 1Navigator
- 2Personalised review
- 3Scoping workshop
- 4Wave-based deployment
- 5KPI measurement
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