All supply chain managers in world class organizations are challenged to optimize their planning. Improving accountability for forecasting, utilizing demand sensing and shaping capabilities, as well as increasing forecast accuracy are considered among the top three best practices in demand planning, according to Gartner’s research.
Today’s focus of rapid-deployment solutions for demand driven supply chain will be on an advanced planning and optimization solution that deploy in weeks:
SAP Demand Planning rapid-deployment solution
Key take away: SAP Demand Planning rapid-deployment solution combines demand planning best practices and with sophisticated demand planning analytics to improve the quality of your demand plan.
Using SAP APO (Advance Planning and Optimizer), you can incorporate the findings retrieved from demand signal management into your mid-to long term supply planning activities. Demand Planning allows you to forecast market demand for your company's products and produce a demand plan. You can generate more accurate demand plans with automatic forecast models based on historical sales data.
This rapid-deployment solution supports key processes for demand planning and demand planning analytics, shown in the task sequence, below. It includes all steps from loading and correcting historical sales data (step 1), executing the statistical forecast run, making manual adjustments to the generated forecast in a role-based model for central and local planning, for example based on dedicated demand signals, and releasing the final demand plan to the supply planning system. Before consolidating and releasing the final demand plan (step 7), this rapid-deployment solution allows you to provide executives with a dashboard and enable them with up-to-date planning information and conduct a forecast review so that they can give their final approval to demand planning realization. In addition, this solution provides an analytical dashboard which helps to check forecast errors on a regular basis by comparing past forecasts with actual sales.
SAP Demand Planning rapid-deployment solution – process flow covered in the packaged offering
If your business lacks this type of process or capabilities, consider SAP Demand Planning rapid-deployment solution.
With this combination of features and innovations, you gain competitive advantages through setting up a superior and differentiated demand planning process: You can increase your forecast accuracy. This enables you to lower your inventory buffers and achieve higher product availability. You can align your planning activities across all departments dealing with sales figures. And you obtain appropriate insights into the demand plan and the demand planning process to your management, using the pre-configured dashboards.
The service, which takes you live in 12 weeks, provides the typical services activities, inherent to most rapid-deployment solutions: from installation check, to scoping workshops, activation and unit testing of the chose package, plus knowledge transfer to go key users and go live support.
How can a firm increase their accuracy in demand planning figures to improve service levels, lower inventory, and increase reliability to the purchasing departments? These were the challenges, Brüggen, a private label producer of cereals for prominent global super market retailers worldwide, was facing before starting to implement SAP Demand Planning rapid-deployment solution.
Now, Brüggen profits from a more secure and more efficient supply chain with reliable and solid forecast data covering a 24 month history. Having implemented this rapid-deployment solution, the company could successfully reduce the number of rush orders and rush notices, minimize excess production quantities and inventories, and can more easily execute planning also for each individual sold-to-party. The average planning accuracy at each ship-from location had been 40 to 55 % percent. The planning accuracy has risen by an average for 20 to 30 % - a stupendous improvement.
"Looking ahead with confidence is something we all want to be able to do.
When your business is based on it, it's more than a wish. It's a necessity.
The rapid-deployment solution helped us realize this impossible dream -
and on a daily basis."
Martin Gries, Director of Supply Chain Management. H. & J. Brüggen KG
Find further information on this solution:
- In SAP Solution Explorer: http://rapid.sap.com/se
Supply Chain Management -> Solutions -> Demand Driven Supply Chain -> Demand Management-> SAP Demand Planning rapid-deployment solutio - In SAP Service Marketplace: http://service.sap.com/rds-dpa (requires dedicated authorization)
- ... or check an external review on SAP Demand Planning rapid-deployment solution from a supply chain management expert.
Stay tuned for part 4 of this series covering SAP Supply Network Planning rapid-deployment solution, helping you to create a mid-term supply plan covering procurement, distribution, and production planning dimensions across the entire supply chain.
Post your questions and comments here or directly reach out to me.
Missed the other parts of the blog series? Find them here:
- Supporting demand driven supply chain with SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions for Supply Chain (Part 1)
- Demand Signal Management – Sense and Respond in Real-Time in Your Supply Chain (Part 2)
- Jump Start Your Supply Network Planning - In Only 14 Weeks (Part 4)
- Advanced Production Scheduling – Getting More From Supply Chain Planning, Fast (Part 5)
- Improve Your Customer Service with SAP Global ATP Check rapid-deployment solution (Part 6)
- RDS for Demand Driven Supply Chains - Your Way to a Rapid Implementation Start (Part 7)
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