Logistics Control Towers:

Buzzword or Value driver

Transport SIG July 2015
William Sears

2 July 2015
 Agenda

Introduction, Need, Definition & Attributes

What are the benefits of Control Towers?

Typical failure points for Control Towers

What are the visibility requirements for successful Control Towers?

Control Towers - hype or a real differentiator?

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 Introduction
What is a Logistics Control Tower

There are varying definitions around Logistics Control

Towers. The common elements are as follows:
Holistic visibility of all interconnected warehouse and
transport functions in near real time
Real time information must enable near real-time
decision making across the value chain
A Control Tower must highlight the event and the impact across multi-tier,
multi-functional and multi-organisational participants
Events must highlight non-adherence to plan, but also all subsequent
impacts across the chain
Non-adherence to plan is not as important as to how the event and
subsequent impacts across the chain are dealt with

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 The power of the tower
Why the hype?

A combination of cost pressures, increased complexity, proliferation

of data, scarcity of talent and customer service requirements have
lead to the rise of Control Towers

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 Introduction
Measures of success of a Control Tower

According to Bryan Ball (Aberdeen), a Control Towers success can

be measured by the improvement in latency we equate this to the
time to problem resolution

Two components of improved latency:

1. Time to alert
Know sooner, near real time
2. Time to problem resolution
Act Faster

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 Introduction
Measures of success of a Control Tower

1. Time to alert 2. Time to problem resolution

Know sooner ~ near real time
Alert must enable meaningful
action
Understanding the impact of the
event (relevance of the event is Determination of what needs
key)
Key event/alert criteria
To whom?
About what?
Act faster
Determination of impact of
event on upstream or
downstream processes
to be done in near real-time
Accelerated problem
resolution is dependent on the
concept of responsibilities
Who needs to know?
What needs to be done and
what the time frame for
resolution needs to be

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 Attributes of a Control Tower
Complete view of end state is required

What are the key attributes of a Logistics

Control Tower?
1. High quality external information
feeds + High quality internal data
= AUTOMATION (Big Data)
2. Real-time Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs) enable determination of
impact
3. Defined roles and responsibilities:
who will respond?

Real-time and predictive alerts

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Processes and automated workflows
Real-time analytics
Decision support capability
} Real-time decision making
& time of resolution

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The Power Of The Tower
Value proposition of a Control Tower

Horizontal Supply Chain Collaboration & Orchestration

Internal and external partner collaboration across the end-to-end value chain to enable more effective service. Close
internal/external integration allows organizations to leverage supply chain partners
strengths, and optimize end-to-end supply chain costs and speed to market..

Effective Centralized Talent & Organizational Alignment

Critical supply chain skills are required to manage complex supply chain challenges. With a scarcity of talent, it
becomes critical to centralize critical skills and leverage them regionally/globally in an effective way.

Dynamic Decision Making & Increased Agility

Successful supply chains must have an operating model and strategy that is agile, supports quick determination
and alignment of root causes, models potential responses, and enables data-driven decision making in real-time

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 Different Control Towers
Integrate, optimize and synchronize the activities of various parties in a value chain

Other potential CTs:

Different types of DDMRP
Inbound Supply Logistics Demand and Supply
SC Control Towers Direct Material
Service Management

Analytics (Performance Management and Continuous Improvement)

Why are things happening, what could happen next, how can we improve?

Building blocks of Orchestration (Planning and Execution Management)

SC Control Tower How can we do it best? Make it happen!

Visibility (Real Time Dashboards and Alerts SVOT)

What is agreed, required, available, committed and happening now and next?

Transactional and
Operations Manufacturing/ Logistics Customers /
Systems Supplier Material Service Distributors
Operations Providers
(including Resolve Transport
Operations Solution)

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 The reality of the implementation
Why most Control Towers dont meet up to scrutiny or fail

Define a scope
Operational vs. tactical or strategic
Complexity can quickly override benefit
Integration must be manageable and provide scalability
End-to-end integration must be implemented in chunks
Start somewhere and get real results as opposed to waiting for total
integration
Seamless integration is an IT myth
Limited visibility is often the cause of failure
Authority
Control tower cant be an alert station or reporting function
Historic reporting often dominates operational decision making
Must have the authority to drive and change behaviour across different
functions and different organisations
Quality and type of people becomes important (dominated by planning
people, Control Tower must have operational credibility)
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 The reality of the implementation
Why most Control Towers dont meet up to scrutiny or fail

Business rules
Automated decision management needs to be kept to a realistic level
System recommendations and human interaction
Level of detail managed is important
Control tower metrics
Control tower must have its own set of metrics and should not be managed
on the metrics emerging from the processes that it is controlling
How timeous was the event trigger
How was well was the event managed at source as well as upstream
Control Towers often become to planning centric as opposed to event
management centric

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 Start with visibility
Williams View On Implementation

Typically control towers are born from planning systems

Evolve into execution management systems with real time events
Information is then passed based on these events
This is then expanded until end to end visibility of events is obtained
The problems are as follows
Scalability, ad hoc integration/integration without a plan will drive a spider
web view of connectivity (sustainability is questionable and certainly doesnt
support agility)
Manning control towers become the domain of propeller heads need the
correct mixture of operational people
Function, becomes planning dominated as opposed to event and action
dominated towers often dont have authority beyond the realm of planning
Rules determination, responsibilities should be considered when building
integration and visibility (at point of event generation its too late to consider
responsibilities)
Advanced visibility will also focus event generation and rule determination
(fish where the fish are)
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 Conclusion & Questions

www.resolvesp.com 47 Landmarks Ave, Samrand resolvesp

wsears@resolvesp.com 076 573 8096 @resolve_sp

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