Over the past few years, supply chain management has radically evolved, particularly in the face of shifting market conditions and unplanned interruptions that upended carefully laid-out business decisions.
Previously organizations have relied on a range of solutions from spreadsheets through to enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to organize their supply chains. Nowadays many turn to cloud-based planning solutions.
However, the results can be mixed. To run an organized, lean, and efficient supply chain in today’s unpredictable environment, businesses must also understand the supply and demand requirements of the markets they serve.
After all, if demand is underestimated at the point of production, this could lead to unfulfilled or delayed orders further down the chain, resulting in strained – or even lost – customer relationships. Rebuilding these relationships could push the overworked distribution chain even further in bids to recover lost ground, spreading the pain to other links in the chain.
Comprehensive planning and collaborative decision-making between suppliers and vendors can cause minor variance in the supply chain, lower production of extraneous inventories, and improve customer satisfaction. What’s more, predictive software like Vuealta’s planning and modeling applications can help to produce accurate, statistics-based demand forecasts that leverage current, historical and external information (like point-of-sale data) from a single, enterprise-wide data repository.
Hit the ground running with Vuealta’s Supply Chain Planning applications
As a dedicated Global Anaplan Partner, Vuealta has developed a suite of targeted applications, built on the Anaplan platform, that easily integrate with existing ERP systems to take on the intricate supply and demand planning challenges present in any complex supply chain.
Vuealta’s team comprises certified Anaplan experts that are experienced at implementing Anaplan’s cloud-based planning platform across a wide swath of industries, including FMCG, food & beverage, consumer electronics, and pharmaceuticals.
Continuing to lead the discussion on optimizing supply and demand along the chain continuously, Vuealta has incorporated its vast expertise in supply chain management to develop three new applications that address specific supply chain headaches.
The Anaplan Connected Planning Platform powers the suite of applications, and the applications integrate seamlessly with Anaplan, requiring minimal IT jockeying or tech support consultation.
Sometimes, ERP and spreadsheet management methods rely on historical data, leaving little room to pivot quickly when disruptions throw demand into disarray. The Vuealta Demand Planning App simplifies having to manage planned events while also being agile enough to allow quick responses to unexpected demand and supply shocks.
Financial data is also integrated with the application in a single, unified place, making management of constantly changing financial data like NPD promotions and price changes easy to address in real-time. The more the platform is used, the more data is gathered to build advanced analytics, making process segmentation easy to plan for – while intelligent alerts can be set up to narrow down planning focus areas, sense demand changes, and deliver valuable insights.
Traditionally, supply chain planning was silo-ed, with sales and operations planning disconnected from one another, and financial planning taking place independently. This could cause inventory gaps coupled with a lack of visibility of the entire chain, making it vulnerable (again) when unwanted disruptions occurred.
The Vuealta Supply Planning App abbreviates endgame scenario planning using powerful modeling tools. The Supply Planning app allows for multiple inventory policies and regulations across multiple metrics so that seasonal and time-sensitive variables (such as a fixed product shelf life) can be accounted for, and capacity and parts assessments can be factored in as well.
When it comes to sales and operations planning, the Vuealta S&OP App takes a top-down view of the entire network, offering multiple perspectives and providing operational data in real-time.
The Vuealta S&OP App’s collaborative process management capabilities turn merely collecting data into a strategic insights-driven process. Decisions and action points taken by different teams and different elements along the supply chain are recorded in a single resource everyone refers to.
Direction changes and ad-hoc needs are tracked from initial planning to tracing root cause and planning how to evade capacity bottlenecks. The planning, collaboration, and supply chain accountability are factored into Vuealta’s application ecosystem. One of the star moments is when executives realize just how easy it is to apply these applications even with little to no prior deep technology experience.
This article is the first in a series spotlighting supply chain planning solutions, with more coming on the Vuealta ecosystem in the next few weeks. To learn more about Vuealta right now, visit its website.
10 April 2024
