“It’s good to be green. Please don’t print this email unless you really have to.” Common sense, surely? As consumers we’re becoming adept at using less paper in our everyday lives. Online transaction volumes are surging. Internet connectivity is ubiquitous, reliable and getting faster all the time. There’s plenty of cheap storage out there in the Cloud. Now we all have smartphones, tablets and ebook readers that allow us to view, author, collaborate and exchange information like never before.
So how can it be that the following statement is true? “A single consignment transaction, from grower to retailer, can comprise up to 150 documents (or up to 225 pieces of paper) which results in duplicate elements of information being entered up to 42 times.”
That quote comes from a SITPRO report on the cost of paper in the supply chain. The same report goes on to estimate that annual costs of £175 million could be eliminated entirely if the UK fresh produce industry adopted electronic processes to replace paper-based admin.
So why aren’t we there yet? Before answering that, let’s take a look at how IT can help. We can think about the problem in two halves: what can we accomplish within our own businesses, and what can we achieve with the help of our supply chain partners?
Three complementary technologies can be used to eliminate paper-based processes within a business. Modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems automate business processes from start to finish using shared data, eliminating the need for different departments to rekey the same information and giving individuals access to data and functions appropriate for their job role. Reporting technologies are used to assist decision making, while document management systems provide a method to store and retrieve high volumes electronically.
Between partners in a supply chain, it’s all about Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). To enable any electronic transaction, there has to be a description of the common elements of data that all parties share. Standard definitions are available for all the common transactions. But the devil is in the detail. Whereas some identifiers can be globally unique, each partner in the chain may associate their own internal identifiers for data in the shared transaction. So everyone has to find an electronic way to convert between the shared view and their internal view. This is called mapping and requires translation tables to be maintained, and if you don’t maintain them properly, when a new product is traded for the first time, that transaction will fail.
For data to be exchanged successfully between partners there has to be trust and certainty. It takes time and commitment to get this right.
So why are we still using lots of paper? The answer lies with a business’ ability (and willingness) to devote sufficient resource to process improvement, and how it chooses to work with its partners. -
No comments yet