ToolsGroup Announces Significant Enhancements To SO99+ For Improved Supply Planning

Version 8.60 of the ToolsGroup supply chain planning solution enables supply chain teams to make informed decisions faster

BOSTON — March 7, 2023 — ToolsGroup, a global leader in retail and supply chain planning and optimization software, has announced the latest version of its Service Optimizer 99+ (SO99+) software, adding new dynamic planning capabilities and modularization to SO99+ and enhancing existing supply planning functionalities. This is just the latest of the company’s significant strides towards making supply chains a force for good by helping organizations guarantee service, reduce excess stock, and increase profits.

With the release of v8.60, ToolsGroup further improves supply chain agility and resilience with expanded capabilities that now deliver:

• Enhancements to Dynamic Sourcing and Multi Sourcing plans simultaneous replenishment from multiple suppliers, and automatically activate back-up suppliers with shorter lead times based on the probability that primary suppliers will be unable to meet demand. The dynamic sourcing capability automatically smooths inventory targets day after day and ensures target service levels are achieved regardless of supplier constraints. 
• Dynamic Stock Levels provide automatic lead time adjustments that adapt safety stock and cycle stock targets to demand and supply changes, and calculate the projected lost sales in the downstream network.
• Probabilistic Bill of Materials delivers more comprehensive inventory planning for raw materials, assemblies, subassemblies, parts, and components, while allowing for flexible planning based on the probability of a component being used.
• Modularization enables engines like Stock-to-Service Curves to be provided as micro-services to other applications in the supply chain ecosystem.

“Business leaders today are looking for new ways to improve the resilience and agility of their supply chains. To increase agility, supply chain teams need to be able to make informed decisions faster and optimize and respond at the speed of business,” says ToolsGroup CEO, Inna Kuznetsova. “We call this dynamic planning. I’ve heard supply chain leaders say that you can get bad answers quickly or good answers slowly. Now supply chain teams can have the best answers when they need them, helping our customers better navigate supply uncertainty. This is another step forward in our mission to make supply chains a force for good in supply.”

These exciting new capabilities add to the existing dynamic planning innovations in SO99+ which include:

• Service Driven Planning: A unique technology that creates inventory plans based on service level targets.
• Multi-Echelon Optimization & Replenishment: An advanced optimization technique that determines the optimal inventory levels across the entire supply chain network, allowing customers to simultaneously decrease inventory across the ecosystem, while increasing service level performance.
• Stock Mix Optimization: The setting and planning of differentiated and market-oriented service level targets as an optimal compromise between service and inventory. 
• What-If Scenario Planning : The simulation and optimization of inventory and service levels trade-offs and their impact in different design scenarios.
• Distribution Requirement Tunnelling™: The time-phased planning of inventory and safety stock parameters and the visualization of performance against those parameters in a replenishment tunnel dashboard.
• Network Balance: Ensuring the right balance across the distribution network for each item in the Bill of Materials, including optimal staging, fair allocation of source availability, and automatic inter-depot transfers.
• Supply Constraints: Mapping and modeling of all relevant supply chain constraints like shipping/receiving calendars, supply lots, order frequency, order constraints, and replenishment dates.
• Optimized Replenishment: Optimization of replenishment planning in challenging supply chain configurations such as multi-sourcing, network lost sales, equivalent products and inventory lot expiration dates.
• Aggregate Constraints: Planning of purchase and transfers to meet supply and capacity aggregate constraints, optimizing the service level in the network through the use of requirement tunnels.

The SO99+ Supply Chain Planning Solution is the market leader in dynamic planning, helping supply chain teams make informed decisions faster. The system can automatically adjust inventory and replenishment based on supply conditions, mitigating the risks caused by supply and demand uncertainty. The solution quickly adapts to changes in demand, market conditions, and supply chain disruptions, and optimizes the flow of goods in order to reduce costly transfers, increase efficiency, and improve supply chain sustainability. SO99+ masks supply chain disruptions and uncertainty from the final customer by ensuring the service level targets are achieved regardless of market conditions.

With over 365 customers located in 45 different countries, ToolsGroup provides the power of dynamic planning with SO99+. Intelligent decision making at the speed of business transforms supply chain performance. Customers report a 5-10 percentage point improvement in forecast accuracy and a 3-5 percentage point increase in service levels while simultaneously achieving a 20-30% inventory reduction. Built-in automation cuts the planning workload by up to 90% and helps companies reduce waste by 10-30%.

For more information about SO99+, read our blog on the v8.60 release HERE.

About ToolsGroup

ToolsGroup’s innovative AI-powered solutions enable retailers, distributors, and manufacturers to navigate through supply chain uncertainty. Our retail and supply chain planning suites empower a new level of fast, intelligent decision making and unlock powerful business improvements in forecast accuracy, service levels, and inventory – delighting customers and achieving financial and ESG KPIs. Stay in touch with ToolsGroup on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, or visit www.toolsgroup.com.