New paradigms in Supply chain planning
Due to the recent credit crisis and uncertainty in the global market, the supply chain business model is changing drastically. More often the planners are finding it extremely difficult to arrive at an optimized plan for supply chain operations. This reduces the flexibility of operations at downstream level resulting in either loss of business due to stock outs or huge inventory pile up. Traditionally supply chain planning is done either at a weekly level or daily level taking into account the current inventory picture and the latest demand on hand. But more often there are quite number of changes happening either in terms of demand, supply situations, capacity due to machine break down, engineering changes, quality issues etc. All these changes have to be made in the transaction (ERP systems) systems and there is a high latency factor before we can replan. How do we react to these changes and quickly replan to ensure that latency factor due to ERP is minimized?
The solution is to have a tool with rapid planning capabilities. This should also provide visibility into the changing conditions directly into planning tools. Event driven planning capabilities with excellent simulation features can help planners react to the volatility in market conditions faster. Another key feature which will help planners is the analytical capability of the planning tools. Currently most of the planning tools do not provide strong features to analyse the KPIs, compare KPIs in various scenarios and then take actions. Planners would like to check their production trends or analyze specific product categories to track their corporate metrics. Features to monitor the performance of their plans, analyze exceptions and review key performance indicators will help supply chain planners take quick decisions.
In order to quickly react to the changing market conditions, the planners will have to collaborate with other stakeholders in the extended organization while finalizing a comprehensive supply chain plan. A planning tool with features to gain visibility across multiple enterprises and collaborate among various planners will drastically reduce the time for planning and make faster decisions. It will be a winning feature if all planners can work on a holistic master plan and take quick decisions.
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http://www.infosys.com/oracle/oracle-openworld-california09/default.asp
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