Increasing Optionality and Agility Into the Supply Chain

Supporting the on-time delivery expectations of our customers is a global mandate for Molex, despite challenging disruption across the world during and after the pandemic. It is why we have substantially expanded our multi-enterprise supply chain network capabilities and turned to Infor Nexus to develop order fulfillment applications combined with advanced, network-based supply chain risk analytics. While many solutions were still rooted in on-premises, legacy systems, we deployed a many-to-many architecture supporting a community of trading partners. These capabilities enable us to adapt to the ever-present threat of disruptions in global supply. They also provide our customers with optionality through multiple paths to achieve their on-time delivery and cost goals.

It all happens through the Infor Nexus Control Center, where we can match customer demand to inventory on hand at different locations. Case in point: A customer needs 10,000 units one week and another 10,000 units the following week. The inventory quantities live in two locations – Chicago and Japan. To support the customer delivery timeframe, we would ship from each location each week to meet the customer’s on-time delivery goals. While it seems like a simple solution, global optionality is actually quite complex, and it may have previously taken 30 minutes to deliver an answer to a customer regarding options to meet their needs.  Control Center enables us to provide an almost immediate answer with the most relevant, real-time information needed on one screen. 

There are also significant cost advantages to the optionality made possible through the Infor Nexus Control Center. Continuing with the previous example, we would define the 10,000 units comprising one of the shipments from Chicago as equal to two cartons, or half of a pallet. The Control Center immediately assigns directional freight costs, allowing us to compare the cost of different methods of shipment. In this case, the customer might opt for an expedited shipment as the benefit of earlier delivery would outweigh the additional costs incurred. But if these 10,000 units were bulky enough to encompass two truckloads instead of two cartons, a different decision calculation might be required. 

The Infor Nexus Control Center provides visibility for customers to understand the true financial impact of their choices. When $60,000 in freight costs might be incurred by expediting inventory to produce a final product that yields $100,000 in revenue, an alternate delivery timeline might be explored to deliver the same product later without expedite fees depending upon key variables. But once again, more than one road might lead to the desired destination. By expediting only part of the shipment, while the rest of the total quantity arrives a few weeks later, timing and cost goals might still be achieved. In this example, the Control Center enables a smarter use of resources to arrive at a more cost-effective decision.

The Infor Nexus Control Center enables the Molex team to identify the nature and scope of both challenges and opportunities, including the logistical considerations underpinning the requested volume and delivery date to ensure we only promise what we can deliver.

But this visibility does not stop at the initial order. The Control Center delivers insights into issues such as supply disruptions, late shipments, and inventory shortages. It helps define the corresponding impact on the customer and highlight resolution options that keep our delivery commitments on track. Actionable decisions are enhanced by having all this information available in one place. By reducing the time required for information search and analysis, the Infor Nexus Control Center shifts the focus to issue resolution/optionality and communication. This increased visibility and communication often translates into peace of mind for our customers. 

Beyond in-transit shipments, Infor Nexus also provides a comprehensive view of shipments “in process,” resulting in a full-featured, highly integrated supply chain control platform which enables end-to-end supply chain visibility to critical Molex functions and customers. The visibility enabled by the control center provides a clear picture of in-process flows of products, materials, orders, and demand across the network. The integration of system transactions and shipment information — such as sales orders, delivery notes, shipments, purchase orders and stock transport orders, goods receipts, and live air and ocean functionality — offers an end-to-end view that is close to real time. It is all built from a sole source of truth. This data allows the Control Center to uniquely drive customer-centric decisions and optimize logistics and freight across all Molex factories and distribution centers around the globe. 

Lean manufacturing demands operational efficiency. Operational efficiency comes from better decision making. Better decision making comes from enhanced visibility from the Control Center. This helps Molex ensure on-time delivery while controlling costs, all designed to drive supply chain agility and mutual benefits for Molex and our customers.