With Karsten Schmidt on Supply Chain Analytics at Infineon Technologies AG
The PERFORMANCE Magazine team was present between 3-5 June in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, for the Supply Chain Analytics conference organized by Marcus Evans. As such, these article series provide our readers with insights gathered from professionals in the field who were present at the event.
Karsten Schmidt holds the position of Senior Staff Engineer, Data Scientist, at Infineon Technologies AG.
As a Data Scientist, Schmidt reinforced the importance of Supply Chain performance management as a critical aspect to the company since can close certain gaps between stakeholders, suppliers, customers and the company itself. One example he provided was the extended time needed to manufacture a product once an order was submitted by a customer. By improving performance in this area, orders can be delivered quicker, customer satisfaction increases and, additionally, more order can be undertaken simultaneously.
Thus, Karsten Schmidt highlighted that employing Performance Management techniques in the Supply Chain is necessary “in order to keep a lid on what’s going. It’s absolutely critical to have the right measures, the correct indicators, and measure the performance of each individual component so that you are able to compete and prove yourself over a long-term.”
The interviewed expert then focused on distinguishing 3 main trends that he has observed, so far, in Supply Chain Analytics, in 2015. Namely, these trends are represented by gathering more data, especially raw data from which better predictions and results can be further obtained, followed by a second trend of mathematical and statistical product analysis and, last but not least, integrated Supply Chain which provides real-time information to suppliers and customers, and it is the gateway to collaborative Supply Chains.
When asked about the difficulties encountered during Supply Chain procedures, Schmidt mentioned that visibility regarding measures, data availability and data gathering are often obstacles that must be surpassed.
