What Kinaxis calls "concurrency" tears down silos from end to end in the supply chain, guaranteeing success, says Tom Rhoads, the company’s global vice president of sales and supply chain execution.

Organizations siloed across sales, marketing and operations typically have suffered from disjointed systems, data latency, and myriad inaccuracies across the business ecosystem. And the more complex the supply chain, the worse the problems become. Traditionally, optimization has been in a single point solution area of the supply chain. Rhoads says concurrency brings true connection that tears down silos everywhere between planning and execution.

In his view, many execution solutions are transactional by definition. They may integrate to multiple systems and drive workflows across multiple modes of transport, regions, currencies and suppliers worldwide. “But what it is not done is connecting back to planning,” Rhoads says. “Execution and planning now need to be connected. And it is critical to look at that from an end-to-end optimization perspective to drive customer service levels to an optimal point.” That’s key whether the customer is a manufacturer, distributor, logistics service provider or a customer of any one of those.

Is this different from the comprehensive end-to-end supply chain envisioned for decades? Rhoads believes so, because now when a planner in any area makes a change, all nodes in the supply chain immediately see what’s occurred, and its impact. The goal is to connect data, processes and people so that everything and everyone is in sync from up-to-date global data. 

“It used to be about taking costs out of the supply chain,” he says. “That’s a one-sided supply chain. They didn't think through the end-to-end delivery point to an end customer or consumer or D.C., whatever that end drop point was. And when they look at just a point area of optimization, they don't understand the endpoint.”