Reverse Supply Chain Analysis and Redesign
The Reverse Supply Chain for most companies is a complex network of internal and 3rd party resources. The holistic view of the Reverse Supply Chain includes all aspects of the service cycle from the first customer contact to final disposition of defective goods or services. Best in class companies continuously seek the optimum balance between achieving competitive service levels and meeting all regulatory requirements at the lowest cost.
Agnitio can assist in evaluating the client's entire reverse supply chain, benchmarking the the as-is model vs. competition in both service levels and costs, provide gap assessments in terms of planning and execution, and providing tools to model trade-offs between service levels and the resulting cost. From this analysis, the client may utilize Agnitio to work with its management to re-engineer the service supply chain.
SLA Benchmarking
What Service Levels are most important to your customers? How does your performance compare to your competitors? Agnitio can help you analyze the competitive factors, rank them in importance, and perform independent research to determine how your company rates by comparison.
It is not always strategically necessary or cost effective to be number 1 on all service metrics. If the objective is to improve, we can help analyze what tactically enables competitors to achieve superior performance. We can further facilitate Kaizen efforts with you, your 3PSPs, and your customers, if necessary, to create action plans to improve service.
Asset Recovery
Whether the objective is meeting regulatory requirements, meeting internal social responsibility mandates, or reducing costs, Asset Recovery is a growing priority for Service Supply Chain executives. The goal of maximizing recovery of value from returned goods is as important as the goal of reducing returns in the first place. Many options are emerging in this space, ranging from whole unit reconditioning and resale through different channels to parts harvesting strategies to precious metal extraction. Agnitio can assist in evaluating your as-is reverse supply chain to identify opportunities for increasing recovery and reducing waste. We can also assist in evaluating partners to perform different aspects of compliance and asset recovery.
Outsourcing Initiatives
The 3rd Party Service landscape is continously changing. EMS companies, Freight companies, 3rd Party Logistics companies, ODMs and pure play service providers bring differing value propositions. As companies look to outsource more pieces of the overall reverse supply chain to fewer suppliers, selecting the right partners becomes even more critical. Indeed, bringing up a new supplier contains significant risks. The Partner must be committed, capable, scalable, have a compatible culture and competitive cost structure. Generally, these relationships are virtual; they need to be complementary and yet transparent to the end customer.
Agnitio's team has accumulated many years of experience in both writing and responding to proposals for the outsourcing of post manufacturing services. We have seen homeruns and strikeouts from the bid stage to the execution stage. We can participate with the client's management to help develop a structured RFI/RFP/RFQ process. We can assist in driving the process and evaluating candidates. This can include analyzing and scoring responses, and/or performing due diligence on the specific respondants and the assumptions embedded in their responses. We can help provide an independent view of the credibility of the response, flushing out what portion of the response is based on successful experience vs. new learning and/or resources.
Agnitio also has extensive experience in developing SOWs. We can assist the client in drafting SOWs that are comprehensive in defining deliverables and SLAs, yet easily maintained and executable on an on going basis; helping to avoid disconnects, scope creep and ultimately hidden costs. We can also design and implement web based executive dashboards for monitoring performance to metrics.
An end-to-end Agnitio solution may involve our management of the process from RFx through NPI (See NPI, New Product Introduction on our Infrastructure page).
Service Providers
Service Providers are also faced with a changing landscape: consolidation among service suppliers, higher service level expectations, lead supplier programs, virtual supply chains, parts ownership models, virtual IT models, muliple-geo-solutions. Competition is emerging from multiple industries as these providers try to expand their value proposition.
For Service Providers, Agnitio can assist in developing a response to a specific proposal, or in evaluating the client's process, content and quality of their responses. We can provide benchmarking to assist in determining your strengths and weaknesses in competing for a particular piece of business.