Low-Code to Build Supply Chain and Logistic Apps

Supply chain management tracks the journey of a product from product ideation to the final delivery. Though logistics determine the winner, that’s not always the case regarding customer satisfaction.

Supply chains are only getting increasingly complex, especially in the post-pandemic timeframe. All the stakeholders of supply chain management worldwide face the additional pressure of digitizing their proceedings to stay relevant in a world where 62% of enterprises confirmed supply chain as their top priority.

Low code development has become the saving grace for the current industry. A promising solution that solves past issues along with tackling modern ones, building a supply chain app with low code is the best decision any enterprise can take.

To start, let’s look at the top problems the modern supply chain industry is facing.

Top Issues In The Current Supply Chain Industry

Here are the top five issues that we think are prevalent in the current supply chain industry and how low-code supply chain apps can solve them with ease.

1. Inefficient Logistics & Transformation Management

Low-code applications can provide efficient tracking methods that allow accurate tracking of products through the supply chain, which can result in more accurate logistics.

Using said logistics, your business can optimize production and transportation management.

2. Poor Inventory Management

Traditional inventory management can always end in miscalculation and incorrect estimation of the inventory. The main reason behind it is mostly inefficient supply chain software.

Low-code inventory management applications can track and manage inventory in real time, and updating the apps is pretty easy if the inventory management workflow is ever changed.

3. Supply Chain Disruptions

Low-code platforms come with built-in collaboration tools, which can also be integrated into supply chain applications.

Continuous collaboration through uninterrupted communication can help prevent supply chain disruptions.

4. Lack of Transparency

Real-time tracking for inventory doesn’t just benefit the business; it also gives the customers a clear idea about their desired product as it moves through the supply chain.

Increased transparency helps improve the user experience and customer satisfaction.

5. Difficulty Adapting To Changing Demands

The low-code development approach allows faster iteration, development, and deployment and increases flexibility.

Through faster development and releases, your company can have increased adaptability to the industry’s ever-changing demands.

We tried to fix as many of these issues as possible with our own supply chain and fleet management application developed for Radiant Distributions Limited.

How Low Code Development Can Optimize Supply Chains

The main motivation for taking the low-code development route is increased efficiency. Here are five ways that low-code development can revolutionize the supply chain industry.

1. Optimized Compliance & Certification

Maintaining track of lapsed certifications, social labor, environmental audits, etc., can get highly complex. If one of the certifications is expired or incomplete, you end up paying a hefty fine for something that wasn’t your fault.

With low code, you can create a centralized information bank that gathers all your data in one place, including the compliance and certification data.

That way, it’s much easier to keep track of certification errors, upcoming expirations, and data related to employee safety.

This helps you optimize the compliance and certification process and keep your business up-to-date.

2. Provides Better Predictability And Agility Insights

When creating a supply chain system, multiple stakeholders are part of different processes, such as:

• Supply Network Creation
• Demand Forecasting
• Planning
• Procurement Strategizing
• Transportation And Delivery Collaboration

When such a complicated process is underway, it’s much tougher to collect accurate and reliable insights. 82% of the supply chain officers emphasize the importance of increasing cross-domain insight-gathering.

With low-code applications, the database is centralized, and supply chain traceability goes up across the different stages of the supply chain.

It also helps the manufacturers understand the potential consequences and alternatives of different procedures.

3. Low Code Is The New Trend

Manufacturers constantly shift towards low code, not just a trend or a hype-based decision. Low code has something to offer everyone, especially applicable to enterprise-level applications, including supply chains.

The low code development method gives you a complete overview of the supply chain that helps you assess the environmental impact.

It also offers you high transparency to look out for security vulnerabilities or possible breaches that can jeopardize the performance and reputation of the supply chain application.

4. Faster Turnaround Time

The current market has a wide range of options for you regarding supply chain solutions. Though technical developers opt for functionality over speed, modern solutions require fast delivery and user satisfaction that requires the involvement of non-technical views.

This is where most existing supply chain solutions fall flat. However, with a low-code application, you can include non-technical personnel in the development lifecycle.

With a visual model approach to development and drag-and-drop interface elements, business experts can share their insights in an application form with developers, making it a highly involved process.

This causes a faster turnaround time while ensuring rich functionality, and the supply chain can get applications out in the market faster to meet the ever-increasing demands.

5. The Integration Is Seamless

Integration is the core process of all supply chains. With low-code applications, the seamless data integration process helps all stakeholders coordinate assigning, completing, and tracking tasks.

With the implementation of Master Data Management (MDM) systems through low-code software development, supply chain owners can now consolidate data from different resources to create a set of master records accessible throughout the organization.

MDM ensures that all the information about supply chain conditions is highly accurate.

How Mendix Helps With Supply Chain Management

Mendix is the king of all currently existing low-code development platforms, and here’s how Mendix can help you with supply chain management in the best way possible.

1. Process Automation

Mendix Smart Warehousing is a low-code application that can help you automate different aspects of supply chain management, including:

• Incoming Public Demand
• Supply Network
• Warehouse Management
• Purchasing
• Transportation
• Inventory
• Contracts

Mendix Smart Warehousing can automate all these processes to keep your supply chain management smooth and consistent.

2. Increased Collaboration

Mendix platform offers applications like Supplier Collaboration that can streamline worldwide collaboration for all the stakeholders of a single supply chain management.

3. Heightened Risk Assessment

Mendix increases risk visibility which helps in efficient risk mitigation with Mendix Supply Risk Management.

It also helps you prevent supply shortages by improving document process flow and timely making production plan adjustments.

4. Convergence Support

Capacity restrictions and fluctuations in demand can often lead a supply chain manufacturer to outsource one or more production steps.

But as the steps are outsourced, supply chain owners often lack transparency to find out exactly what’s going on in those steps.

Mendix Outsource Production Step helps increase visibility in all the external software providers and their workflow and creates more accurate logistics reports.

To Wrap It All Up

Suppose you want to improve the logistic operations of your supply management application. In that case, you must ensure maximum efficiency with the right set of tools and technology to streamline all the work.

By leveraging a low-code application platform, you can update your infrastructure in no time while addressing every market requirement with ease and finesse.

Not sure where to start from? Impala Intech is ready to assist your supply chain management processes with Mendix’s low-code application development platform. Why not give us a call and get started today?

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