Tech Notes

Control Tower Software Overview

Supply chain logistics requires solutions that facilitate end-to-end visibility and transparency. This need is why supply chain professionals are on an active mission to find better ways to collect, organize, and distribute their data. Currently, supply chain management experts are increasingly embracing control tower systems. This software solution aims to enhance the visibility of the supply chain between trade partners, transportation providers, businesses, and countries. 

Although it does not control logistic operations, a control tower helps speed up supply chain and warehouse management by offering visibility and a seamless workflow into the lot receiving, product picking, and shipping processes. It also collects all your data in a single source starting with order entry all the way to disposition supplier reporting. 

Here is an in-depth overview of different types of control tower supply chain software. 

Supply Chain Control Tower

A Supply Chain Control Tower is a personalized yet interconnected platform of data, critical business metrics, and supply chain events. It enables businesses to have a complete understanding of their issues in real-time and how to best prioritize and resolve them. 

A good Supply Chain Control Tower offers end-to-end visibility, especially into unexpected events. It leverages AI and machine learning to reduce manual processes, dismantle data silos, and obtain actionable insights in real-time. 

Based on where it starts, a properly executed Supply Chain Control Tower can cut down 10-20% of total logistics expenses via enhanced sourcing, resource balancing, load consolidation, routing, and better collaboration with crucial suppliers. 

The precise planning parameters and more stable supply chain operations possible through an effective control tower can lower safety stock requirements by about 4-8%. If the organization faces an out-of-stock situation, it can prioritize particular items to boost earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA. A next-level Supply Chain Control Tower is better positioned to facilitate crucial corporate initiatives in security, safety, and risk management since choices about the supply chain have an impact on all of them. 

One of the emerging key performance indicators (KPIs) that investors care about beyond fiscal outcomes is sustainability. Balance sheets should demonstrate value to society by promoting social and ecological responsibility. Fortunately, effective Supply Chain Control Towers can offer that multifaceted visibility through sustainable goal setting and measuring, as well as ESG compliance monitoring.

Production Control Tower 

Have you ever missed your daily production target several times and wondered why? You may have wanted to call your production facilities to remind them of the problems that occurred on those fateful days. Even if you could view operations performance at an individual level, you may still find it difficult to evaluate performance from start to finish. That’s where the Production Control Tower comes in. 

A Production Control Tower creates a digital replica of your manufacturing processes, creating more transparency and visibility into what is happening within the four walls of your factories. By using real-time data, you can analyze essential production processes across different operations to pinpoint inefficiencies, optimize build plans, and promote continuous improvement. Viewing your production through a digital lens allows you to easily spot the issues that are preventing your manufacturers from reaching production targets, deploy mechanisms to address the problems, and gauge resulting improvements.

TADA’s Production Control Tower helps you confront rising costs, labor challenges, and supply chain disruptions. You can collect data across operations to:

  • Get a true picture of your process performance by measuring outputs in real-time 
  • Find deviations and focus on those with the biggest impact on quality, productivity, and on-time delivery
  • Quickly deploy solutions to optimize production and avoid delays and overstocking 
  • Track solution effectiveness and make real-time adjustments

Using TADA’s Production Control Tower helps your organization get ROI in a matter of months rather than years. Our Production Control Tower has over 10 applications aimed at solving day-to-day time-consuming challenges, like managing internal work orders, material shorts for production, and impacts on customer promises. 

Built-in workflows enable workers to monitor root causes and mitigation plans, increasing efficiency from planning through execution. 

The Digital Production Board is another application that provides failure mode analyses regarding productivity losses across assembly stations, internal warehouses, paint lines, machine shops, and more. 

Distribution or Logistics Control Tower

A successful supply chain in the consumer goods industry is one that can distribute items to end consumers quickly and accurately. Buyers at a distribution organization should have the right tools at their disposal to decide quickly on how to deploy products. The aim is to adhere to the supplier contract, consolidate orders, prevent stock-outs, optimize truckloads, and lower inventory costs. Therefore, distribution planning is a crucial factor in optimizing supply chain operations. 

As geopolitical uncertainty and natural disasters continue threatening supply chain stability, it is more important than ever to have digital command hubs for distributors and third-party logistics (3PL) companies to gather data and mitigate risks. TADA’s Distribution Control Tower expands real-time visibility and helps lower your total cost to serve. 

The Distribution Control Tower provides various customizable workbenches for different distribution roles, such as Supply Chain Executive, Warehouse Stock Planner, and Transportation Analyst. Each workbench profile displays the metrics and applications required for each job function to make predictive and prescriptive business decisions.

Procurement Supply Chain Control Tower 

Procurement leaders are in dire need of robust and effective multi-enterprise collaboration. But it is nearly impossible to line up every stakeholder’s decisions, data, and performance without a Procurement Control Tower. 

The Procurement Control Tower serves as a centralized nerve center for procurement. The solution aims to bring data, procurement systems, and various enterprises together within a safe, cloud-native environment. Organization executives can make better-informed decisions within the supply chain, which improves analysis and scenario scheduling for enhanced overall financial and business performance. 

The Procurement Control Tower does not assume the role of any purchasing execution software you have currently and thus doesn’t completely overhaul your procurement process. Rather, it improves existing software by organizing the planning that takes place before buying. The Procurement Control Tower unifies external and internal data without limited-visibility, error-prone, outdated, or laborious spreadsheets. Centralizing siloed systems and data allows current systems to work more efficiently. It’s also possible to automate the data collection and analysis process so that procurement teams don’t have to manage status updates manually via email. 

Why Choose TADA? 

Implementing TADA’s Control Towers will help improve supply chain operations in your organization, enhance on-time deliveries, and achieve end-to-end visibility. But you need a platform in a consolidated location for collaboration among multiple enterprises.

TADA is an innovative platform with cutting-edge Digital Duplicate® technology that links people, products, and processes and offers collaboration and visibility across the entire enterprise ecosystem. With phased deployment—launching in just 6 to 8 weeks—you can collaborate with partners in real-time, across devices and platforms, with infinite navigation. You’ll benefit from AI-powered analytics and real-time notifications to stay on top of all your operations. Whether you are a complex or mid-size organization in healthcare, consumer goods, or manufacturing, you can use TADA to streamline your supply chain solutions.

Contact TADA or request a demo to learn more.