Forbes Innovation The Importance Of Testing Post-Globalization Supply Chains Adam Sandman Forbes Councils Member Forbes Technology Council COUNCIL POST Expertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based) Feb 15, 2023, 09:15am EST | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Founder and CEO of Inflectra , with 25 years of experience working in the technology industry. getty In this article, I will explain how and why global supply chains are changing as a result of macroeconomic factors. I will discuss how this has opened the door to new supply-chain technologies as well as the need to update existing supply-chain IT systems. Finally, I will explain why these technological changes will require companies to invest in comprehensive quality management initiatives and outline some best practices for managing and testing such large-scale IT projects. The End Of Globalization As described in the interesting Economist article " New Research Spells Out The Benefits Of Diverse Supply Chains " (paywall), the past three years have caused a massive reshaping of the global supply chains that underpin the modern economy. First, we had the Covid-19 pandemic, which simultaneously created a seismic shift in the working patterns of knowledge workers and disrupted the manufacturing and distribution of physical goods. Second, we had the chaotic exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union and its single market for goods and services. Finally, the conflict in Ukraine is shifting global trading patterns in both physical goods and knowledge workers from a globalized model to one of regional alliances and bilateral agreements. Each of these trends on their own would have caused a massive reshaping of global supply chains, but together they have changed the way companies source, manufacture and distribute goods. With the increase in paperwork and the need to have a redundancy of suppliers and even countries, there is a need to track the flow of items in real time, have end-to-end visibility of items and have the capability to reconfigure supply chains dynamically. For example, if there is a disruption in the Port of Los Angeles, logistics firms will need to be able to route the goods to a different location or even a different customer. In the Forbes Business Council article " Where Is The Global Supply Chain Heading In 2023? " Joe Monaghan, CEO of Worldwide Logistics Group, provides some great predictions of what we may see in 2023. MORE FOR YOU Meet The Unknown Immigrant Billionaire Betting Her Fortune To Take On Musk In Space Disability Inclusion Means Action Corporate Governance Must Mature: How To Get Started The Rise Of "Supply Chain Tech" According to this insightful Bloomberg article (paywall), technology firms are rushing into the void to provide digitization solutions to make supply chains fit for purpose in the 21st century. Many of my company's customers are in the business of manufacturing, distribution or retail, and they tell us firsthand how the disruptions and changes in their supply chains have resulted in an increased need for automation and technology upgrades. However, they also say that their number one challenge is the need to adequately plan, develop and test all these systems to make sure they work as expected. No easy task. Testing The Supply Chain As supply chains become more complicated and dynamic, the computer systems (for example, the inventory, warehouse and transportation systems used to manage the flow of goods) become more complicated themselves. Take a simple example from a customer that imports fruit into the UK and Ireland: Because of Brexit, they had to duplicate all their systems to handle imports to the UK separately from Ireland, as well as handle the case of goods making their way from Asia to Ireland via Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK. This tripled the number of requirements and business rules they had to test in their systems. So how do companies deal with the need to digitize their supply chains and make sure they work correctly and legally (following the necessary safety, sanitary and customs rules)? Well, the key is to make sure they follow industry best practices that the software industry has learned time and time again. 1. Get your requirements right. Make sure you have all the business rules and processes documented and reviewed. Understand how each type of good or service will be handled and how the systems tracking it will need to be configured. 2. Be agile and open to change. This is often seen as being in conflict with the first item, but it doesn't have to be. However good your requirements gathering is, you will need to adjust your supply chain processes as real-world conditions dictate and make sure you can update your documentation. 3. Use test coverage metrics. Many companies testing their supply chain IT systems don't connect the testing back to the original requirements. This is a big mistake—tracking coverage helps you avoid holes in testing that might be missed. 4. Embrace automation. Depending on the IT systems in question (e. g. , SAP) there are tools that can automate the testing of these systems. If you have to test thousands of different SKUs, automation will be necessary to test every case. However, automation is not a panacea; you still need to have humans test the systems afterward. 5. Use risk-based methods. Risk-based testing is a useful approach in which you use risk exposure metrics to determine what is most important to test. For example, testing the processes that deal with perishable goods with multiple suppliers is going to be more critical than testing nonperishable goods that deal with a single supplier. Conclusion The next five years are most likely going to be a period of disruption to and reconfiguration of globalization. The supply chains that put food on the table and products on shelves are changing. Companies that manage different parts of the supply chain will likely need to automate and streamline their supply chain IT systems. These same organizations should start thinking now about how they will manage and test these changing systems before it is too late. 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