Supply Chain Planning Package Assessment – Focused clarity on undefined business needs
Published Date:
Dec 22, 2011
Client
- One of the world’s leading Specialty Chemicals manufacturer with a revenue of around $ 2.2 Billion
- Corporate Headquarters at Boston, US with operating companies all around the world – Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific
- Specialized in specialty grade carbon black, inkjet colorant, fumed metal oxides among others
Situation
- Low Demand Forecasting accuracy & manual S&OP, causing long cycle times
- Multiple manual handoffs in the Supply and Procurement Planning process
- Poor visibility of inventory across the complete supply chain - no real time on – hand inventory, no feedstock inventory at global level
- Unable to run what – if analysis for Demand Planning, Supply Planning and Procurement Planning
- Current version of the installed JDA – Manugistics was 10 years old and had not been upgraded since then
- Limitation of the existing JDA – Manugistics required development of external applications, processes eg: Aggregation, DFU – SKU mapping
- Difficult to support the existing system, which was heterogeneous and aging
Solution
- HCL used a phased approach for evaluating the two products
- Workshops were conducted to gather the global supply chain requirement to identify leakage areas
- Requirements were divided as critical and important and rated separately mapped to the current technology
- Product fitness assessment was conducted on three dimensions –
- Functional
- Technical
- Adoption
Process & Technology Areas
Benefits Delivered
- Process Areas:
- Demand Planning
- Inventory Replenishment Planning
- Supply Planning
- Procurement Planning
- Sales & Operations Planning
- Products Evaluated:
- JDA– Manugistics & Oracle
- Unbiased/Objective analysis to top management on the final choice
- Clarity on undefined business needs / requirements
- Information of TCO on the evaluated products for better informed decisions
- Flexibility of adapting package selection methodology to unique needs of the client
- Managing scope creep while maintaining focus on the key objectives and project timelines
- Carefully balancing the needs (and conflicts!) of corporate IT and Operations
