Increasing On-Time Deliveries with Strategy, Process and Technology

While there are many ways to build strong relationships with our customers, sometimes the best way is to get back to the basics — and putting shipments into their hands at the moment they expect them is a good start. When a delivery arrives on time, customer production schedules stay on track and their strategic and tactical plans can move forward.  

Molex’s on-time delivery has increased by 15 percent compared to 2022. This is the result of our ongoing efforts to address global supply disruptions and market uncertainties through digital transformation. While maintaining on-time delivery is a simple concept, the strategy, process and technology behind it is far more complex. But it can be broken out into four primary components. 

Through our GSOP&E initiative, which is a critical pillar of our global digital transformation, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in our on-time delivery relative to the Customer Request Date (CRD). As additional Molex divisions have gone live with GSOP&E 2.0, we’re tracking double digit, year-over-year growth as customer requests and actual delivery key performance indicators (KPIs) come closer together. 

The GSOP&E 2.0 program includes a cross-functional decision-making process that considers financial, operational and marketplace impacts. The cross-functional team comprises all stakeholders and is designed to address decisions across multiple timelines and horizons — including strategic, operational and tactical variables. The goal is to make decisions that best support our customers, mapping directly to needs and expectations.

The GSOP&E model consists of processes and tools to drive an information flow that enables forward-looking decisions based on a predictable set of data. To support this effort, a company-wide digital backbone, known as the Kinaxis Tool Suite, enables Molex to scale and align GSOP&E processes as objectives change. The tool suite facilitates consensus planning and reduces surprises by enabling our teams to gain insight and vet decisions with cross-functional stakeholders. Accuracy is increased and the GSOP&E cycle is shortened with rapid and collaborative plan development. The result is improved timing of key decisions that enables everyone within the organization to execute based on real-time data rather than guesswork.

To maintain on-time delivery, we must ensure that all components — the Molex networks, our capabilities, and our customer-facing and internal systems — are working in concert. That requires clear understanding of how alterations to a variable in the network equation may impact other variables. An accurate view of supply chain performance requires deep visibility into our network, and a comprehensive understanding of whether specific changes under consideration will improve service levels and reduce costs, or just increase cost without providing optimized delivery performance and supply chain agility. 

If a customer needs to change a delivery date, network optimizations link all of the necessary systems to ensure that we're able to provide a response to that request quickly. When receiving a request, it goes to a planning team member who can communicate with our plants in real time and respond to the customer. Our overall response volume has been significantly enhanced through our efforts to unify systems and capabilities.

The next component that expands our responsiveness is Infor Nexus Control Center, where we can match customer demand to inventory on hand at different locations. This internal logistics tool enables us to ensure we have products going to the right locations and through the right mechanisms, while maintaining visibility to where the products are in the logistics chain. The Infor Nexus Control Center helps us identify where shifts need to occur. For example, we may need to move from longer logistically timed products or channels to a faster delivery of products from our plants to our supply chain hubs. This increased visibility facilitates better decision making — and making the right decisions based on where product is in our supply chain is having a definitive impact regarding on-time delivery. 

The Infor Nexus Control Center also helps to protect on-time delivery by giving Molex teams the ability to adapt to the unexpected. It shows where goods or containers are and the impact on specific line items. Users can instantly see an end-to-end overview of Molex’s supply chain through the Control Center, giving them practical new tools to prevent any disruption from turning into delays.

In addition to Molex back-end processes and technology, our front-end customer engagement provides transparency and ensures a collaborative relationship with every shipment. Molex has implemented next-generation digital customer service and commerce portals to simplify and improve every aspect of customer engagement through advanced tools and processes. Advanced analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are also used to automate transactional processes while unlocking vital insights to improve decision making.

These capabilities enable Molex to respond to expedited customer requests with greater agility. Where a customer historically may have waited 24-48 hours for an answer to their request regarding a shipment, they can now get that answer within minutes.

As consumers, we have been conditioned to expect real-time feedback to our requests of vendors we interact with in our personal lives. These consumer expectations have now transferred to the business environment. At Molex, we recognize that our customers view access, transparency and responsiveness as table stakes for an effective business relationship. Our collective efforts and investments in transformational systems and processes support on-time delivery and our commitment to providing a superior customer experience. And that’s an experience that we’re all too happy to deliver.