What according to you are the biggest challenges for Supply Chain Management?

The biggest challenges in supply chain are as follows not in any particular order:

1. Training. We have the most educated people in the world but too few of them understand how to CONTROL our supply chain. Our team is empowered to make decisions e.g. delaying purchasing, holding outbound trucks, expediting parts, but too few of our people understand the impact to the complete supply chain and the risks to our customers and their end users.
2. Impact assessment. We deal with thousands of customer order changes per week. Each one of the changes cascades through the supply chain. Assessing cost impacts correctly so we can pass them on to our customers and vetting the costs against customer contracts is a non-trivial task.
3. Supply chain software. We do not need fancy programs to manage the supply chain effectively. What we do need is data. Trying to get a system set up that uses one data nomenclature for all countries, trade zones, suppliers, customers, warehouses, production facilites is a huge task.

According to me the main challenges are:

•  Identify Right System Requirements
• Select Right Solution
• Depute Right Implementation Team
• Provide Right Time frame with Right Methodology