Supply Chain Analytics

What Is Supply Chain Analytics?

Supply chain analytics is the use of data analysis techniques to understand supply chain performance, identify patterns, and support better decision-making across sourcing, logistics, and operations.

How Does Supply Chain Analytics Work?

Supply chain analytics draws on data from across the supply chain, shipments, inventory, supplier performance, costs, and applies statistical and analytical methods to answer specific questions, ranging from what happened in the past to what's likely to happen next and what to do about it.

Types of Supply Chain Analytics

• Descriptive: what happened (historical performance reporting)
• Diagnostic: why it happened (root cause analysis)
• Predictive: what's likely to happen next (forecasting, risk prediction)
• Prescriptive: what to do about it (recommended actions or automated decisions)

Why Supply Chain Analytics Matters

Moving from descriptive reporting (dashboards showing what happened) to predictive and prescriptive analytics (forecasting what will happen and recommending action) is what separates reactive supply chain management from proactive, competitive supply chain management.