Planning & Forecasting
Healthcare Technology Provider Turns to LogicTools
LogicTools, a developer of strategic supply chain planning solutions, says that Gambro, which specializes in renal care, healthcare services and blood-component technologies, has deployed LogicTools' network design solution for the past five years to continually analyze and realign its North American and European networks.
Gambro, with more than 11,000 employees in 40 countries, delivers critical blood- and cell-related products and services worldwide. In addition to dialysis products, Gambro operates dialysis clinics and supplies blood bank technology worldwide.
"We have been able to successfully use LogicNet Plus for studies in the U.S. over the last five years and over the past year we've focused our efforts on our European network," says Phil Hendricks, director of transportation at Gambro. "Having the technology in-house has allowed our network to stay efficient through many changes in both the market and our company. LogicNet Plus allows us to analyze complex situations, has been easy to use and we have always had the backing of the excellent team at LogicTools."
The solution developer says companies like Gambro that "operate in a fast-moving environment, can reduce costs through understanding their supply chain structure and the trade-offs that impact their costs. LogicTools provides the solutions that optimize the supply chain by considering the entire network, taking into account production, warehousing, transportation and inventory costs, as well as service level requirements."
On Oct. 5th, 2005, Gambro announced the closing of the sale of its U.S. clinics business to DaVita Inc. Under terms of the agreement, Gambro will be the preferred supplier of key renal products to DaVita.
LogicTools (www.logic-tools.com), founded in 1995, provides the expertise, software, services and support that enable comprehensive supply chain planning processes in a variety of industries. LogicTools' suite of supply chain planning solutions includes LogicNet Plus for network design, Inventory Analyst for strategic inventory positioning and optimization and LogicChain for multi-site production sourcing.
Beverage Packaging Maker Plans with Quintiq Solution
Packaging manufacturer SIG Group has signed a worldwide agreement with software company Quintiq for delivery and implementation of the Quintiq solution for Advanced Planning and Scheduling. SIG will integrate the Quintiq solution with its worldwide SAP ERP system. As a result Quintiq will be the standard planning solution for the strategic and operational planning at all production plants of SIG. The company operates plants in Europe and Asia.
The SIG Group consists of two divisions: SIG Combibloc, which manufactures beverage cartons, filling machines and closures, and SIG Beverages, which focuses on stretch blow molding, coating and filling of PET bottles. The group is headed by SIG Holding Ltd. In 2004 the group reported net sales of 1.7bn euros with about 7000 employees.
Quintiq says its software is designed to enable SIG to plan its production optimally resulting in improved customer service (both increased delivery performance and reduced lead times), reduced working capital requirements (especially inventories) and increased throughput.
The strategic consultancy partner of the SIG Group, Capgemini, began implementation in October. The first results are planned for the second quarter 2006.
"We selected Quintiq after an exhaustive search for a fully integrated planning solution that is complementary to our SAP backbone," says Arndt Gelenkirchen, CEO of SIG IT. "We are going to use Quintiq for our strategic, tactical and operational planning across all our production facilities.” Udo Brockmann, SIG director of supply chain management, says, “Our customers require an efficient and responsive production. As the leader in flexible production we will implement the Quintiq technology to ensure this position.”
More information on The Netherlands-based Quintiq Corporation is available at www.quintiq.com.
SAP Supports Finnish Tissue Manufacturer's Planning
Metsä Tissue, a Finnish company that makes tissue and cooking paper products for household and large-scale consumers, has introduced a corporate demand and supply planning process with standardized process steps, meetings, KPIs, and reports supported by the functionality of mySAP Supply Chain Management. "The company has now been strengthened through intelligent management of its supply network and has achieved measurable and sustainable improvements in forecast and delivery accuracy, capacity utilization, and visibility," according to a report in the SAP in-house, online publication, SAP Info.
When Metsä Tissue started the implementation of a common tactical demand and supply planning process in September 2003, it faced sub-optimal planning and insufficient resource utilization. Among other results were insufficient delivery accuracy in growth markets, limited ability to increase the sales volume, and the need to turn down local deals due to local capacity bottlenecks.
Metsä Tissue did not have a common planning processes at corporate level. Local units optimized planning and production based on their own needs. Metsä Tissue also lacked a planning system with the ability to consolidate information from the different ERP systems that were in use.
The manufacturer brought Capgemini on board to help design and implement an integrated solution for the supply chain processes, including demand planning and capacity planning. With its SCM project the enterprise wanted to support sales growth, sustain delivery accuracy, improve demand planning forecast accuracy, and decrease supply chain costs.
Visit www.metsatissue.com and www.sap.com for more information.
AMR: Move From Forecasting to Demand Sensing
Demand-Drive Supply Networking, or DDSN, is a major transformation that redefines processes, trading partner relationships and organizations, according to AMR Research. One strategy for achieving DDSN is to move forecasting to demand sensing. A tight correlation exists between demand sensing and the more frequent use of demand forecasting technologies. Of 264 North American companies surveyed in November 2005, 18 percent of those that forecast demand monthly are able to sense channel demand in less than a week, while 31 percent of companies that forecast demand weekly were able to sense demand in less than a week.
AMR predicts that in 2006 70 percent of companies will redeploy demand forecasting technologies to better integrate and use channel data, increase the frequency of forecasting to improve demand sensing and forecast performance, and build demand visibility systems.
Visit www.amrresearch.com for more.
Rohm and Haas Selects MIPO from SmartOps
Rohm and Haas Co., which produces specialty materials for a variety of industries, will implement the Multistage Inventory Planning & Optimization (MIPO) solution from Pittsburgh-based SmartOps.
Data from Rohm and Haas' enterprise systems, including SAP and Manugistics, will be fed through MIPO to calculate optimal inventory targets and create accurate what-if scenarios for analyzing supply chain strategies.
"Managing Rohm and Haas's complex, multi-echelon supply chain requires clear visibility into the drivers of supply chain performance, particularly inventory," says Sridhar Tayur, CEO of SmartOps. "MIPO gives them the accurate, timely data they need to make the right planning decisions to improve customer service."
SmartOps says MIPO enables customers to determine optimal inventory and product availability plans given the inherent uncertainties, time-varying data, multi-location and inventory stage complexities, and aggressive customer service goals of today's real-world supply chains. MIPO generates optimal inventory targets for each stage of the supply chain while providing visibility into each inventory requirement, including safety, cycle, pre-build, pipeline and merchandising stock requirements, by item or stock-keeping unit, to meet desired service levels.
MIPO's optimized inventory targets serve as critical inputs for enterprise resource planning and advanced planning and scheduling systems, so they deliver better intelligence for inventory planning and execution.
Visit www.smartops.com for more information.
Aberdeen Report: Benefits of Advanced Planning and Replenishment
Out-of-stocks, markdowns and spoilage from excess inventory of perishable items plague retailers around the world, regardless of segment and size. The cost of lost sales, dissatisfied customers, and inaccurate inventory forecasts can bring even the seemingly best-run retailer to its knees.
Aberdeen Research, in an effort to understand retailers' perception of the gravity of the situation and to understand technology-enabled solutions they employ to solve it, conducted a primary research study with more than 60 retailers last autumn.
While most retailers recognize that there are significant differences between the variety of advanced planning and replenishment offerings, a significant plurality believe that some tweaking of results will be always necessary, regardless of the quality of the math. However, more retailers than ever, most notably in North America and EMEA, recognize that the best advanced planning and replenishment applications can solve a baseline problem without tweaking, even as they uncover other issues that were not previously visible.
There is little doubt that, given the pressures retailers face and the strategies they contemplate, the need has been recognized to move past spreadsheets as the tools of choice for advanced planning and replenishment operations. Within the next 24 months, more than 80 percent of retailers surveyed will have implemented automated systems to support virtually all aspects of their planning, allocation and replenishment operations.
For more information, visit http://www.aberdeen.com/.
MCA Enhances SPO Planning Software Suite
MCA Solutions recently launched the newest version of its Service Planning and Optimization software suite, with enhanced forecasting and planning capabilities.
SPO 5.1 reportedly extends MCA's customer-centric solution to distribution-centric environments, giving planners greater visibility with seasonal and trend forecasting capabilities, and a variety of user-defined planning scenarios to compare the cost, service and budget impact of long- and short-term business decisions across the service product lifecycle.
"Post-sales service is increasingly becoming a primary differentiator for OEMs as product-based profit margins continue to shrink," says Mark Vigoroso, vice president, Service Chain Management Research, at Aberdeen
Group. "Sophisticated service parts forecasting and planning is mission critical for companies looking to meet or exceed service commitments while minimizing inventory carrying costs."
MCA says that SPO 5.1 delivers an intuitive interface with increased usability, making it easy for customers in diverse
industries to perform:
• Advanced forecasting. This allows planners in distribution-intensive environments to incorporate trend, seasonal and service-specific pick-best forecasting to help best position inventory and parts to meet SLAs, lower costs, and improve customer satisfaction.
• Enhanced workflow. This supports provisioning that can be used in new product introduction and initial provisioning of contracts. It can also be used for improving lifecycle management.
• Highly configurable, multi-period budget reporting. This allows planners to analyze new buy and repair requirements and cash flows over user-defined periods, driving increased revenue to the bottom line.
• Sophisticated "what-if" simulation for contract negotiation. SPO 5.1 includes enhanced what-if capabilities, evaluating the business impact of specified changes in the service supply network for more intelligent and effective business decisions and allowing improved analysis and negotiation of service contracts.
• Integration of planned maintenance scheduling. SPO 5.1 plans parts requirements for both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, integrating information concerning maintenance schedules, equipment operating parameters, and part specific data to determine optimal stocking levels.
• Increased scalability. SPO 5.1 has been developed for high performance for the largest service problems, with implementations of more than 200 million part locations in production, and models tested to plan more than 10,000 locations.
Visit www.mcasolutions.com for more information on Philadelphia-based MCA or its product line.
Capgemini, SAS to Deliver Product Forecasting Tool
Capgemini's Operational Research team has been working with Cary, N.C.-based SAS to develop a "joint proposition" that combines Capgemini's expertise in business modeling and demand planning with SAS's updated forecasting technology.
"Our collaborative phased approach with SAS is focused on delivering immediate business benefits through targeted improvements in product forecasting," Capgemini says. "By using our proven diagnosis tools and modeling methods we will work with the client to rapidly:
• Identify where there is potential for improving demand forecasting operations
• Quantify the value of improved forecasting, and
• Demonstrate that it is possible to deliver the improvements through a proof of concept
Capgemini says a recent survey it took shows that the majority of respondents (89 percent) felt that the benefits of accurate forecasting were at least reasonably well understood in their organization. However, when asked the reasons preventing an improved forecasting performance, data quality, data availability, technology, inappropriate models, manual interventions and lack of governance all rated as medium to high in importance. A fragmented approach to forecasting was also evident with 47 percent rating the consistency of their forecasting approach at best "partly consistent."
Delivering new forecasting solutions can take between three to six months based on desired results and current client conditions, the consultancy says. "The SAS technology provides an easy to implement, end-to-end solution that is tailored to meet users' specific requirements. Its modular design provides the framework to enhance and strategically expand the scope to meet future needs."
For more information, visit www.capgemini.com or www.sas.com.
Open Ratings Launches SBManager 4.5
Open Ratings has enhanced its flagship solution for supply risk management, SBManager. The Boston-based developer says that the benefit of the upgrade "delivers the most reliable and easy-to-use predictive indicator for ensuring stability in the supply base, critical for today's competitive and often lean manufacturing operations."
Web-based SBManager 4.5 is designed to help manufacturers escalate action quickly in advance of potential disruptions, with new levels of context for analyzing and understanding alerted changes in a supplier's stability rating.
SBManager addresses manufacturers' need for immediate, relevant information on the state and well being of suppliers. The solution analyzes and links essential information on performance metrics, financial indexes, and legal and government compliance requirements with the company's global supply base. Using machine-learning technology, it provides real-time insight into supplier conditions and financial stability, to create a so-called Supplier Stability Indicator that identifies and alerts manufacturers to potential issues while there is still time to make changes to avoid disruptions.
Open ratings says the new features are designed to present critical information in a highly intuitive and easy-to-interpret format. These include:
• Supplier Stability Indicator descriptions and commentary that provide guidelines for interpreting changes in a supplier's score on the Web page
• High-level dashboard that highlights current information on the most critical suppliers for easy scanning
• Expanded information available in alert e-mails to support real-time decision-making
• New alert configuration rules allowing supply chain managers to define a hierarchy for escalation
"Outsourcing, lean initiatives and the challenging economy are all driving an urgent need for a more forward-looking approach to evaluating the financial and performance health of their suppliers," says Jim Lawton, vice president of Open Ratings. "With SBManager 4.5, our customers get a 'risk' index delivered daily that shows how suppliers are performing on key metrics, and the context needed to put any changes into perspective-ensuring that action is taken long before issues turn into crises."
For more information, visit www.openratings.com/
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