Ownership is Everything: The Data Integrous System of Record
Our actions and decisions are only as good as the data we use to rule them. That being true, when designing complicated systems, ensure the integrity of the data set involved becomes enormously important. Obviously, the data that resides in a system should be accurate. However, it also needs to have integrity, which means consistent and not unnecessarily redundant.
A good data set is invaluable. Done well, it puts all of the data elements in one place, making it easy to share, analyze, extrapolate, and use. Which system owns the data is potentially even more important. If you want to fundamentally alter the data based on business rule or a business logic, then it should be done in the system that owns the data—so it’s critical to track the lifecycle of the system and to refer users to the primary system for specific data.
For example, sales order (SO) information is always owned by an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, since that is where all the aspects of the order are handled and tracked throughout the lifecycle of the sale. That same sales order might be downloaded to a warehouse management system (WMS) for fulfillment. The WMS will use the order information to fulfill the order, to optimize the fulfillment process, for packaging instructions, and more. However, this system should only allow information lookup—while changes to the data should be done in the ERP.
Let me offer a real-world example. When I was working at multinational computer company, we sold computers all over the world. We had a complicated challenge of streamlining the system integrations pertaining to shipment data from various manufacturers worldwide. These suppliers would share advance shipment notifications (ASNs) through electronic data interchange (EDI). About 856 transactions in all, these provided all shipment information that allowed the recipient to be ready to receive the product. Our goal was to create a single consistent architecture so that the Global Supply Chain Systems Group could support it.
The company, which was 30 years old, had gone through multiple acquisitions and had teams all over the globe. Any change had the potential to impact a lot of people.
So how do you skin this cat? So how do you streamline all these system integrations in a smart way that makes the system manageable? We ended up leveraging GT Nexus, a global supply chain management platform. In its infancy, the company created a system that provided visibility to ocean shipment data including current status, origin, destination, ETA, path, modal etc. GT Nexus began accumulating this information, eventually it became the repository for this information worldwide. It was so easy to login to the system and get all the information about the shipment as long as you had a shipment number. By integrating into the system, GT Nexus became the system of record for all the shipment data until we completed our streamlining.
It is very important to have a system that owns the life-cycle of the data set to create a single source of truth. More important, maintaining a single, simple architecture eases integration into other systems
What are some of the data integrity and system of record challenges you have run into, while optimizing, integrating, streamlining, maintaining different supply chain systems in your organization? How did you overcome those challenges? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Originally published at Smartgladiator.com on Oct 29, 2018.
Puga Sankara
Puga Sankara is the co-founder of Smart Gladiator LLC. Smart Gladiator designs, builds, and delivers market-leading mobile technology for retailers, distributors, and 3PL service providers. SG LoadProof is a patent pending Centralized Enterprise Photo/Video Document System on Cloud for Supply Chain. SG LP is built on the fact that photos & videos are vital docs as important as POs/SOs/Legal Contracts/Fulfillment Orders that reside in ERP/WMS/TMS systems, that serve as compelling, conclusive, unequivocal proof of crucial, critical, vital operations executed in Supply Chain within/across orgs when fulfilling customer orders as well as meeting contractual obligations between orgs as merchandise is transferred between different parties that partake in Supply Chain functions & operations. And these photos/videos data should not be stored in someone’s Smartphone or Email Inbox or in their personal/work Computer, but should be stored in a Centralized Enterprise system, where such data can be pushed into super-fast, stored securely, accessible to all stake holders (CFO/Sales Reps/Customer Support/AR/AP) in an org, as well as facilitates super-fast retrieval/sharing. LP is an Enterprise System of record for Photo/Video docs & is as important as an ERP which is an enterprise system of record for POs, SOs, Legal Contracts between parties etc. that have huge legal ramifications, also as important as a WMS (Warehouse Management System) that hold indispensable shipment & fulfillment data on orders. Like how Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc. have evolved into social media platforms/systems that enable individuals to showcase their beauty/pretty clothes/lovely cosmetics/hep coolness etc., LoadProof is an Enterprise system that holds similar photos/videos, but for a different reason, not for show off, but to serve as compelling, conclusive, unequivocal & indisputable system of record and proof that can be presented even in the court of law, when there is a dispute between parties while they execute many facets of the Supply Chain functions & operations. Puga is a supply chain technology professional with more than 25 years of experience in deploying capabilities in the logistics and supply chain domain. His prior roles involved managing complicated mission-critical programs driving revenue numbers, rolling out a multitude of capabilities involving more than a dozen systems, and managing a team of 30 to 50 personnel across multiple disciplines and departments in large corporations such as Hewlett Packard. He has deployed WMS for more than 30 distribution centers in his role as a senior manager with Manhattan Associates. He has also performed process analysis walk-throughs for more than 50 distribution centers for WMS process design and performance analysis review, optimizing processes for better productivity and visibility through the supply chain. Size of these DCs varied from 150,000 to 1.2 million SQFT. Puga Sankara has an MBA from Georgia Tech. He can be reached at [email protected] or visit the company at www.smartgladiator.com. Also follow him at www.pugasankara.com.
