ToolsGroup Announces Significant Enhancements To SO99+ in 2023

When ToolsGroup’s product team sat down to determine the roadmap for Service Optimizer 99+ (SO99+) going into 2023, three key themes quickly emerged:

• Expanding SO99’s overall visibility and transparency for our customers
• Better explaining what the solution does and why, all while improving overall usability
• Increasing the power of our back-end engines to drive better results to all users

It was clear early on that we had a bevy of exciting capabilities – each mapping to one or more of these themes – that would be delivered across 2023.

In order to roll out capabilities to our customers as they became available, ToolsGroup has made the exciting decision to split SO99’s traditional yearly release schedule into quarterly releases!

As such, ToolsGroup is happy to announce our second release of 2023 for our Service Optimizer 99+ Supply Chain Planning solution.

With v8.61, SO99+ will be delivering enhanced transparency and accuracy across the entire solution while increasing the overall strength of the solution’s forecasting engine.

Our focus on customers is why so many companies choose us as their trusted supply chain partner – companies like Italian agro-food giant, GranTerre.

Here is what Massimo Corrado, Supply Chain & logistics Director at GranTerre shared about the upcoming enhancements.

GranTerre has been a ToolsGroup customer for many years, and we value their commitment to innovation. We are excited to see these enhancements to SO99+ and the improvements they will bring in visibility, explainability, and power.”

Explore the capabilities below to see how v8.61 aligns with our overall product vision and truly expands the scope of what is possible with SO99+.

Seasonality at Item/Area Level

Clustering is at the core of how users plan out their forecasts.

Identifying key overlapping similarities across SKUs and using those insights to better predict demand behavior and the impact of planning decisions is essential to supply chain success – and that holds especially true for items experiencing seasonality.

Previously, SO99+ users could cluster for seasonality but on a more generalized basis.

With v8.61, we’ve introduced the ability to cluster for seasonality at the item/area level, which allows for a whole new level of detail than ever before.

This enables more accurate results via higher-quality clustering results and enhances the power of our overall forecasting engine.

Enhanced Misaligned Forecast Value Alert

To support increased system transparency, we first looked at ways to help users better understand what the system was telling them and why.

With v8.61, we started with alerts.

Previously, when users had built a forecast that was inconsistent with historical data, they received an alert letting them know that the inconsistency existed.

We’ve enhanced this in the most recent version so that it will also tell users where this misalignment occurred, ensuring that users can quickly remedy it without any further complications.

We plan to eventually expand this level of explainability across our system, as we believe that making it faster and easier for planners to identify problems and fix them is key to increasing their overall efficiency and effectiveness.

Automated NPI Suggestions

At the beginning of this year, we introduced our new NPI Dashboard, which provides an interactive display for SO99+ NPI forecasting.

It enables immediate what-if scenario planning for all the attributes that may impact the performance of a new product introduction, a deeper understanding of the variables that affect the success of a new product launch, and the rationale supporting the projections for the launch forecast.

With v8.61, we’ve further enhanced users’ NPI experiences with notifications that not only tell users when there are errors in their forecasts or models, but also give automated suggestions on how to fix these errors.

Similar to the alerts in our previous section, these notification updates provide more transparency and explainability at every step of the process and ensure users are as equipped as they can be in delivering the best possible results for their business.

Our addition of automated suggestions helps users introduce new products more easily than ever before and proactively ensures each launch is as effective as possible.

Moreover, by providing recommendations, the system reduces manual processes, helping planners be more efficient than ever before.

Alternative Transportation Mode

We’ve also enhanced our replenishment functionality, specifically around transportation modes.

Using the built-in machine learning capabilities of SO99+, users now can make better-informed decisions when selecting different transport options.

For on-orders that need to be expedited and have multiple transport options available, the system can suggest the best overall option to ensure that the products will be delivered on-time, based on a number of pre-set factors.

This has a tremendous impact on bottom lines – and not just in terms of costs and customer satisfaction for expedited orders.

Better visibility into transportation options and the tradeoff implications for cost and delivery time allow an unparalleled amount of flexibility to deal with demand change, which has grown increasingly important as market volatility increases.

Key Takeaways

The SO99+ Supply Chain Planning Solution is the market leader in dynamic planning.

The system can automatically adjust inventory and replenishment based on supply conditions, mitigating the risks caused by supply and demand uncertainty.

It 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.

Making better and faster decisions ensures service level targets are achieved regardless of market conditions and supply chain disruptions.

Backed by ToolsGroup’s powerful AI capabilities and innovative mindset, SO99+ delivers the supply chain planning horsepower needed to drive decision making, navigate uncertainty, and deliver results at the speed of business.