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What’s missing? In May 2025, one in seven home-purchase agreements fell through resulting in the cancellation of 56,000 purchase contracts. Each is attempting to slather AI on today’s offering: this fueling a hype cycle for agentic AI. Technology can change or even improve work. It is a landgrab of sorts.
” Followed by “How are you organized, and what defines functional excellence? And, how do you tie functional excellence to corporate value?” Companies became less clear on the definition of supply chain excellence and how to implement decision support technologies. This gap grew over the last decade.
Let’s hope that these new executives see the light of a new day. Aptean is orchestrating the Blue Yonder/E2open/Infor playbook of buying undervalued assets and milking the maintenance and Software-as-a-Service contracts with existing customers. OMP’s press release this week announced nine new chiefs. Kinaxis and o9.
I wrote my first report on Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) while sitting on the floor in the Atlanta airport in 2005 when I was an AMR Research analyst. The model in Figure 1 became the foundational model for the Gartner S&OP model. Sales and Operations Maturity Model from 2005-2008. Figures 2 and 3.
Given your expertise, I’d love to hear what alternatives you recommend for better demand forecasting and real-time visibility beyond what’s commonly adopted today.” I know that your primary focus is procurement. Unfortunately, the industry is full of a lot of Anna(s) and her friends, the doubting Thomas (s).
Today’s headline news includes AllBirds, Boeing, Canada Goose, Chemours, EMC, Hanes Brands, Fisker, Ford, Krispy Kreme, LKQ, Ryder, Tesla, Timken, Tyson Foods, Weight Watchers International, and WestRock. Let’s not quibble on the percentages. For context, let’s call him Dave. The public markets are nervous.
This manufacturer produces plastic reusable material handling containers and plastic fuel tanks. The Company operates eighteen manufacturing facilities, nine distribution centers located throughout North and Central America. Mr. Baker spent over 34 years leading procurement teams at The Dow Chemical Company.
During the 1980s, I was on a management team for a large manufacturer. The Company was attempting to gain economies of scale by grouping manufacturing technologies within a common infrastructure to reap the benefits of a co-generation facility, a centralized warehouse, and a talented administrative team. Lack of executive buy-in.
Each executive has a different perspective on the definition of supply chain excellence, but they are never discussed and aligned. Let’s focus first on John. His organization purchased an advanced planning technology from well-known best of breed provider, and the implementation should have been successful, but it was not.
We conclude this two part series about manufacturing operations excellence by consultant Chuck Intrieri, by outlaying why manufacturers should focus on a critical component that will help sustain manufacturing operations excellence for years to come. What is Driving Sustainable Manufacturing Operations Excellence?
Nvidia, Northrup Grumman, PACCAR Inc, PCA (Packaging Corporation of America), ResMed, Rockwell Automation, Ross Stores, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) Company, Tempur-Pedic, TJX, Toro, Toyota, West Pharma, United Tractors, and Urban Outfitters. How Do You Define Excellence? I admit it. Lora was as well.
Many of the case studies being presented at today’s conferences were born during the pandemic and the post-pandemic turbulence. One of my insights from doing the industry analysis for the Supply Chains to Admire each year is that smaller and less well-known companies outperform larger and better-known manufacturers.
From my previous blog post , it’s clear that the road to achieving sales and operations planning (S&OP) excellence is not an easy one. Read on to learn how to transform your S&OP workflow, boost your scenario planning capabilities and get the most out of your S&OP process.
Frank, the line manager for manufacturing, dominated the meetings. Ed argued that instead of buying new packaging equipment that we should work with R&D to have a base flavor and add the color and flavoring at the head of the machine. As a result, we shelved Ed’s idea. Strength in S&OP.
The older tools from CAPS Logistics, SNO from Oracle, and Manugistics Network Planning are giving way to new technologies like the Logictools product (purchased from IBM), the Solvoyo product for concurrent planning, the Quintiq technology for concurrent optimization, and the Llamasoft technology platform for optimization and simulation.
In 2012, I published an article on Sales and Operations Technology (S&OP) Maturity. (I At the time, one of the people (let’s call him Noel) that I great respect for in the industry called me to say, “Lora, I don’t get it. Let’s start with a definition of concurrency.
Q: Is it only inventory disrupting the agility resulting from inaccurate forecasts by S&OP? Is it S&OP? In the supply chain, variability and volatility come from many sources. Flexible Manufacturing Scheduling Practices: The design of manufacturing processes to flex with market fluctuations.
But there is good news: a convergence of process, data, and technology provides the real-time and predictive visibility needed to optimize supply chain planning, ensuring food manufacturers can build resilience now and for the future. Planning Manufacturing Based on Demand. Preparing for Market-Driven Demand.
GEON Performance Solutions purchases plastic pellets and add plastic compounders to make products of different strength, resilience, and flexibility. The roots of IBP are in sales & operations planning (S&OP). S&OP is usually a month-long cross functional process that involves five steps.
I could write a blog about each story, but let’s save that for coffee.) Let’s take a discussion from my DM on LinkedIn from Ryan. similarly, over 95% of manufacturers invested and implemented supply chain planning, but their primary tool today is Excel. Will they prove valuable in the future? The result?
In this edition: Jaro Caban, Global S&OP, Cargill Animal Nutrition. My responsibility is Global S&OP and Process Improvement Lead and I take care of three elements: Firstly, to establish S&OP across CAN. Our buyers are purchasing micro ingredients, such as vitamins, additives, minerals, etc.
This morning, the New York Times pushed me an article by Peter S. I would like for us to move past the conventional view of sourcing strategies and globalization to drive improvements to the supply chain in a variable world. The populist narrative of sourcing globalization is only part of the story. So, my reply to Peter S.
However, what is clear from our recent study of 73 manufacturers using supply chain planning is that companies using best-of-breed solutions implement faster, achieve a quicker Return-on-Investment (ROI), and are more satisfied. Let’s start with a definition. Was it intentional? Or accidental? We will never know.
SmartOps was purchased by SAP. The press release last week cited the reason for the acquisition, “…as part of the strategy to build a real-time optimization solution for S&OP on SAP HANA. SAP released an S&OP solution using HANA in 2011. However, the picture is not that rosy.
Let’s Start With Clear Definitions My inbox is full. Let’s have fun! Let’s start with the definitions: Graph AI uses Machine Learning on graph-based technology to understand the relationships between variables to drive insights. Many of today’s solutions include Narrow AI. Or transform work?”
The focus is on the role of supply chain finance in driving supply chain excellence. Next year’s conference will be on September 8th-11th in Franklin, TN, south of Nashville, TN. The design of the conference includes tours of several modern warehouses and centers of excellence. The Role of the Budget in S&OP.
Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) processes have evolved over the last 30 years to address this age-old problem, yet recently SCM World declared “S&OP is still the top inquiry within the SCM World community.”* The struggle to balance customer demand with available supply is as old as trade itself.
In the last 30 years S&OP improved performance in many businesses. However, S&OP has not yet substantially delivered on its ultimate promise of enterprise wide resource management, rolling financial forecasting and strategy deployment. Worse, overall S&OP development and progress seems to have stalled.
Planting the Seeds of Resilience Most companies understand that accurate forecasts are critical to minimizing inventory, maximizing production efficiency, streamlining purchasing, optimizing distribution, minimizing waste, and projecting future performance confidently.
” At least, that’s what was promised. This includes the automation of path-to-purchase for consumer products, active shaping of demand through price, channel incentives and promotions, eCouponing and mobile commerce for retail, and product proliferation for all. ” I smiled. Instead, it is designed for resiliency.
Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is a continuous business process that enables firms from hospitals to chemicals to respond to emerging situations intelligently. Our focus today is to discuss the relevance of buzz words such as Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Data Science, and Machine Learning, for S&OP.
With the purchase of i2 by JDA, and Logictools by IBM, manufacturing companies serious about network design started looking for a company, with a well-established community, that was more serious about network design. The goal was to translate volume and unit-based data into a profitability “what-if” analysis.
The power of Integrated Business Planning (IBP) comes in helping companies align financial, sales, production, procurement and marketing information into a single plan, grounded in modern-day reality. Down here on the ground where real people are trying to run real businesses, there’s little time for semantic subtleties.
In Figure 1, I show results from a recent S&OP study. S&OP Challenges. Jackie kept a lookout perched on puff’s gigantic tail. As you read the financial analyst’s views of the industry summon your inner dragon: Clearly, the whole space has moved along very rapidly in recent years.
As a result, a wide range of businesses, from restaurants, and retail chains, to manufacturers, have been redesigning their business services and operations and re-engineering their supply chains. They can adjust quantities and generate supplier replenishment orders in PDF or Excel as needed. Emerging Themes for Supply Chain Planning.
While MRP and S&OP were defined as early as the 1980s, these provided rough cut analysis at the aggregate level, nowhere near the level of detail that is possible today. Now they want to deploy an S&OP process. However, excellence in corporate planning matters.
This is the fifth post in a series where we investigate some of the myths and mistruths around Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP). Today we are going to look at lean manufacturing. Myth: “No Need for S&OP; We have Lean Manufacturing.” ” (See post: Leaning towards S&OP/IBP).
by John Westerveld Over the years, working for and with numerous manufacturing companies, I’ve seen many supply chain practices that cost companies money. Reason #4 Making key decisions by modelling the supply chain in Excel. I lost track of how many carrots we had and ended up buying more when we really didn’t need any.
Whether you''re a manufacturing company in China, a sourcing agent in London or a world''s leading company in Silicon Valley, we''re all in a global supply chain networks. That''s why we ask our experts a very simple question " How to improve the operational efficiency in global supply chain?
Over the years, working for and with numerous manufacturing companies, I’ve seen many supply chain practices that cost companies money. Reason #4 Making key decisions by modelling the supply chain in Excel. by John Westerveld. You can find the previous posts here: Reason #1: Offshoring without getting the full picture.
Importance Versus Effectiveness of Demand and S&OP Planning Solutions. The third issue is the lack of understanding that global processes–to maximize the economies of scale in transportation and material buying–need strong governance. So you might think, sometimes, you’d have better luck than this in Vegas.
As manufacturers intentionally design their supply chain flows, AI becomes a key ally in synthesizing complex data sets, managing higher numbers of SKUs, and navigating intricate operations – while meeting rising expectations for faster fulfillment and customer satisfaction.” The same holds for the supply chain organization.
Planners need to contend with inconsistent consumer buying behavior, the need to satisfy multiple channels, complex sourcing options and proliferating “sub-seasons,” collections and assortments. Establish In-Season Excellence to Maximize Sell-through. Apparel is an exciting and rapidly changing industry.
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