Today at SAPPHIRE NOW, Angela Olsen, the principle architect for Supply Chain Planning at Cargill, talked about the company’s supply chain transformation journey using the SAP Integrated Business Planning solution.
Who Is Cargill?
Angela gave a brief overview of Cargill, which is “a global company with more than 150,000 employees who work in nearly 70 businesses, located in 67 countries.” She explained that “Cargill has a singular purpose: to be the global leader in nourishing people.”
This is achieved across four business segments:
- Food
- Agriculture
- Industry
- Finance
Implementing SAP Integrated Business Planning at Cargill
Cargill began its implementation of SAP Integrated Business Planning with a pilot program in the Cargill Salt business, which started in April 2015 with a design workshop. During the summer months, the team conducted an iterative functional build, test, and training approach to enable a production cutover in the fourth quarter of 2015. This enabled a go-live in nine months, in January 2016. The goal of the program, which included SAP Integrated Business Planning for sales and operations and SAP Integrated Business Planning for response and supply, was to enhance the company’s existing sales and operations planning (S&OP) process and increase the robustness of its what-if analysis capabilities.
The second phase involved the Central America Meats business, which applied SAP Integrated Business Planning for sales and operations as well as SAP Integrated Business Planning for demand across four countries: Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. Kicked off in December 2015, the go-live is slated for May 2016.
Cargill is already realizing the business benefits of the transformation
Angela highlighted several of the business benefits that Cargill is seeing through a “single data model tying together supply chain, commercial, and financial information, enabling true integrated business planning processes.”
They include:
- Generating additional revenue, cost, and margin projections supporting the S&OP process and what-if analysis
- Increasing efficiencies and capabilities in what-if analysis
- Enhancing user-friendliness, reducing learning curves, and improving user adoption
- Enabling real-time analytics and improving decision-making effectiveness
- Accelerating delivery time
- Gaining the scalability and flexibility to meet diverse business and process maturity levels
Where does Cargill go from here?
Angela discussed some of the future projects that Cargill is currently considering to enable demand and supply planning across multiple businesses, which will involve replacing its existing legacy planning systems. She also highlighted the importance of good business processes and the company’s plans to enable the Oliver Wight Integrated Business Planning process across specific enterprises.
One thing’s for certain: Transforming its supply chain has made the future at Cargill a whole lot brighter.
