ERP Software Solutions in Sydney: Successful restaurants manage their supply chains efficiently. This is achieved through the simple solutions crafted to address specific challenges faced by restaurants. Supply chain management is crucial for the success and growth of restaurants. And with ERP software solutions connecting restaurateurs and vendors/suppliers there is greater visibility and real-time shared data  making the supply chain more transparent and efficient than ever. 

How does this help the restaurant? It lowers overhead costs, reduces inventory build up and wastage, and ensures increased availability of fresh food. Thereby, restaurants get to meet customer demands and boost customer satisfaction. These benefits are possible with real-time end-to-end visibility, collaboration and business intelligence through the right kind of technology.

Here’s A Quick Look At What SCM Is

A supply chain is a connected network of individuals, organizations, resources, activities, and technologies involved in the manufacture and sale of a product or service. Supply Chain Management or SCM oversees each touchpoint from initial creation to the final sale of a product or service. It oversees the flow of goods and services which includes all processes that transform raw materials into final products.

The Need For Supply Chain Management In Restaurant Industry

A multi-unit restaurant supply chain will have many vendors, purchasing agents, broad assortment of goods and multiple restaurant locations. There may be processes that must be repeated thousands of times annually by associates of varying expertise. There may be lots of moving parts across the kitchen,  order taking, dining, billing and backend processes which form the backbone of a restaurant business.

When the business expands, the supply chain can become more complicated. This complexity has increased the need for better visibility over the entire supply chain process. Integrated supply chain solutions or ERP software solutions reduce the number of “moving parts” or chances of errors and make it easier to enforce business rules. 

Following are the key reasons which make SCM inevitable in the restaurant industry: 

• The food-services industry has an extremely complex supply chain.
• A huge amount of perishable goods can account for wastage and increased cost.
• Multiple stakeholders are involved in the supply chain.
• Seasonality of the restaurant industry and other external factors make it difficult to forecast requirements accurately.
• Often a large inventory is required which increases inventory holding cost.

The traditional method of managing a restaurant supply chain involves the use of spreadsheets, paper invoices, multiple systems and databases. Such an approach can cause staggering monetary losses that may remain almost invisible throughout the supply chain. Supply chain management is a complex process. Individual losses may be small and can occur at different touchpoints. An integrated supply chain management system or ERP software solutions will help you track these inefficiencies in a timely manner. Non-integrated systems make it difficult to be responsive to food quality and safety issues, both critical to ongoing success. An automated supply chain management solution that ties the back office system to the supply chain solution has wide-ranging benefits.

The food services industry needs a connected supply chain management solution. It will help you transform the traditional linear supply chain into an adaptive network with better visibility into internal processes. It will help you easily sense and respond quickly to changes and capitalize on new opportunities that arise. Proper planning of procurement, manufacturing and transportation will help in lowering the operational expenses. Better products, ordering process, and execution tracking can improve performance and quality, resulting in lower costs.

Supply Chain Management Operations In Restaurant Industry

Supply chain operations in restaurants require synchronization between demand and supply. Traceability and transparency of the processes are of utmost importance. Right implementation of technology leads to better visibility in the entire supply chain, directing a broader understanding of the processes. Automated supply chain management solutions connect all the associated partners on a single platform.

Forecasting or Demand Sensing

Demand forecasting is a critical step in the supply chain cycle. Inefficient demand forecasting systems can lead to stock wastage or reduction in sales due to shortage of supply. It can result in higher losses which will force you to cut-down costs across various operations. Consequently, it can affect the relationships with vendors too. An automated forecasting module collects and analyzes consumption patterns of customers to predict future sales. The system can easily estimate inventory requirements by analysing the available stock in the kitchen and item-wise sale from each outlet. It can eliminate the issues related to ageing of raw materials. 

Vendor Management

It is necessary to choose the right vendors for maintaining quality and efficiency in your restaurant business. It is also important to manage and integrate vendor-partners and track them using the right technology. Poor vendor management can result in shortage of raw materials. The quality of cooking ingredients may deteriorate due to poor storage conditions. It can also cause a delay in timely order delivery. ERP software solutions in Sydney have the right answer for this. These solutions have a centralized system for maintaining the records of all vendors. This can mitigate the risk involved with missing information. It helps you to easily track real-time information regarding the contract, invoice, order, delivery and lot more. Restaurants can maintain a record of the inventory received from various vendors at a centralized database. It also lets you manage the price variation of different vendors from a single platform.

Purchase Management

Restaurants with multiple outlets place purchase orders based on average requirements. Such an approach without proper analysis of outlet level stock requirements has several drawbacks. One outlet may be running short of inventory while the other may have excess inventory with no proper storage facility. Restaurant outlets also face the problem of missing out or receiving the wrong item. Purchase order management of SCM can help you view and analyse the stock requirements for each outlet separately. Based on this information, purchase orders are directly sent to the vendors.  The system also helps you monitor order details like order status, purchased items, and receivables. It ensures quality and equal distribution of inventory at predefined costs.

Inventory Tracking And Management: Tracking and managing inventory manually is time-consuming and ineffective. It is difficult to manage the circulation of raw materials manually. It can also lead to wastage of perishable inventory. Analyzing the overall sales of all the outlets without an automated solution also results in an unequal distribution of stock and cash flow problems. An automated SCM solution enables real-time inventory tracking. It helps in the early detection of discrepancies related to the usage or consumption of raw materials. It helps you understand the stock requirements of each restaurant outlet. The automated inventory management module also minimizes the wastage of the perishable inventory by calculating the shelf life of the items. It can bring down the food costs by standardizing the recipe on a central level.

Consumption Management: Consumption management module in restaurant-centric ERP software solutions helps you identify the loopholes in the usage of inventory. The system automatically displays the ideal consumption levels when fed with the actual raw material consumption data. It helps you identify the possibilities of excessive usage, wastage or pilferage. It will also help you reduce the unnecessary usage of raw materials and cut down the overall cost.

Automated supply chain management solution gives you real-time visibility into the supply chain processes. It saves time and money, reduces inventory, lowers wastage and enables greater agility. Real-time data shared between all supply chain partners makes the restaurant supply chain more transparent and efficient. Given the results achieved in the industry, restaurants that embrace such efficient, easy-to-use solutions experience greater profitability and sustained growth.