Network Optimization - Measuring the Impact of Adding and Taking Away Sites

Description
A supply chain network can also be known as a “footprint.” In short, where are your locations, your suppliers, customers and how do they interact with each other? A healthy organization should be asking themselves this question regularly because the variables impacting whether a footprint is working well changes over time. Variables like site leases, labor costs, transportation, suppliers and more can all impact where your own footprint should exist. Potential questions from leadership that this tool kit will help answer are: What would happen if a particular site went down due to a natural disaster or we shrunk our footprint? Where would our customers be served from? What impact on time or service does that have What impact would adding an additional location have on our network? Is it worth the cost to add a new location?
In this document we are going to take a step by step look at evaluating a network and measuring how well it is working. To do this we will look at both the current state as well as the optimal state. Then, we will add as well as subtract locations and measure their impact versus the current state. This three step process of looking at the current state, the optimal and then how additional or less sites impact cost or service is the best way to understand our impact on the network.