APO, IBP, Ariba and Supply Chain Management Case studies

Olivehorse supported this leading European bathroom manufacturer on their drive towards a step change in forecast accuracy.

From an initial short, focused functional and technical assessment of the statistical forecasting operation, a number of key improvements were identified to help the company attain their objective of a step change in forecast accuracy.

Olivehorse were then engaged to deliver a suite of enhancements to help better analyse forecast data, improve statistical forecast performance and address weaknesses in managing the phase out for end-of-life product.

The aim of this project was to increase both planning efficiency and visibility of network inventory using the APO SNP Optimiser.

Following a detailed design phase, Olivehorse expanded and enhanced the existing SNP solution to encompass the whole European Gum category network, implementing a number of solutions to address specific requirements such as the balancing of stock across the network and additional functionality to improve the usability of alerts.

In the quarter following go live, the client was able to reduce inventory holding in the category by 10 days, while also seeing a great reduction in the amount of manual planning taking place within the system. Planners were also able to dedicate more time to a number of strategic projects taking place across supply planning due to the reduced amount of manual intervention required in their planning cycle.

This global hi-tech brand had growing demand for its highly innovative product range and was struggling to keep up. The company was only partially using the existing APO solution and most supply planning was being performed in Excel. It was an off-system process, neither scalable nor robust enough to support the growth in the global business and supply chain.

We worked with the client’s supply planning and IT teams to define a more complete, robust process using standard APO-SNP capability. And we equipped them with a roadmap to develop both the system and people capability needed to adopt the model.

This client has over 300,000 location products worldwide, running on a single APO instance. Our team architected the global APO supply optimisation solution in its foods, and personal and home care divisions.

The solution Olivehorse delivered includes Demand Planning, Supply Network Optimiser, Deployment, Transport Load Builder and Production Planning and Scheduling.  Olivehorse then supported this client over many years in the global deployment of the solution, and its subsequent process and system improvements.

We helped this organisation cut planning cycles from 30 days to just seven days, reducing inventory and increasing agility. How? Through the adoption of a structured demand planning cycle with clear roles and responsibilities and the rigorous adoption of exception-based processes.

Part of the solution was to directly engage the commercial team in a weekly consensus-based demand planning process, enabled by an exception-based process.

The planning team at this large multinational was struggling to make the most of the advanced, supply planning solution the organisation had implemented. They were beginning to revert to offline, Excel planning tools, creating isolated islands of information and inconsistent processes.

We used our Olivehorse Planner Care methodology, firstly working one-on-one and in small groups to identify and resolve data issues. Then we worked with planners to model their particular supply chain problems. Finally we equipped them with the knowledge to use the system to model new problems and constraints as they arise in the future.

We believe this intensive, on-the-job training is the best approach for empowering planners with the skills needed to make the best use of APO planning tools. It’s the only way to address planners’ specific issues and to therefore begin to fulfil the enormous potential that advanced planning solutions offer.

In the words of the customer: “Plants where the system was not working for years, started to have the optimiser working. We discovered lots of issues – from master-data to optimiser profile settings – and fixed it”

The client wanted to implement DDMRP at one of its key European sites to reduce frozen periods and inventory. From initial engagement to go-live, we implemented in just 10 weeks.

First we spent eight weeks engaging with management and working with IT teams to define data requirements and develop extraction methods. This was followed by two weeks training and cutover activity. The results? The frozen period shortened from 28 to nine days and inventory reduced by 30% across finished goods and raw and packaging. All with zero impact on service level, which remained at 99%.

A rapidly growing client needed to see if its planning solution was able to adapt to changing business objectives. We were tasked to benchmark its existing planning capability against other FMCG companies using APO. Our team used our healthcheck methodology, based on the five dimensions of process, organisation, system, reporting and data.

Following the benchmarking exercise, we assessed ways of working by means of questionnaires, interviews and supply chain metrics across multiple regions. We provided a set of recommendations to address immediate needs and a roadmap to guide the longer term development of process. End product? The groundwork for a solution fit for purpose for the evolving business.