About
As the company renews and expands its portfolio, the supply chain planning teams must control the end-to-end (E2E) network to balance demand and supply as optimally as possible. To accomplish this, they require end-to-end visibility and supply chain connectivity, as well as enhanced agility, resilience, and decision-making speed, and improved response times.
The challenge
The supply chain planning team needs to provide a response to multiple events and potential situations at an operational and tactical level. As the number of instances requiring a supply chain response and the complexity of the assessments increased, there was a clear need to improve its simulation processes, capabilities and enabling technology.
Some of the key challenges faced were:
- The variety of supply chain disruptions to be assessed, including external events, commercial opportunities, external manufacturing changes, variations in internal supply, and regulatory approvals and quotas.
- Lack of end-to-end simulation focused responsibilities, making it difficult for tactical and operational planners to collaborate.
- Existing processes were time-consuming and labour-intensive and therefore could not always provide the required supply response inputs to integrated business planning forums in a timely manner.
- Simulation capabilities had not yet been configured to support complex simulations that consider multiple inventory, asset, labor, or contractual constraints.
The project
EyeOn worked in close collaboration with all partners to bring the simulation capabilities to the next level and fully leverage the functionalities of OMP’s Unison PlanningTM in both the OPR (operational planning simulations) and S&OP layer (tactical simulations).
- The simulation process was re-defined and better integrated between E2E and MPS planners.
- Common simulation use cases were defined and the simulation flow for these use cases was piloted in OMP to refine the planning flow and data model inputs, automate where possible, and improve the visualization and comparison of scenario results. As part of the use case pilots in the S&OP layer, a simulation solver was used to generate automated simulation proposals for complex scenario needs.
- The improved functionalities and capabilities in Unison Planning, as well as the process changes, were rolled out to the entire planner community through an extensive and interactive capability building program.
Results
By bringing together expert capabilities, cutting edge technology and a mindset for change the customer has managed to increase the overall simulation capabilities, implement standardized simulation use cases, and improved simulation response time. The key benefits for the organization are:
- Standardization of simulation capabilities: Harmonization of capabilities across the global organization through standardized use cases and a Community Of Practice (COP) of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) that will sustain and improve the standards over time.
- Fit-for-purpose simulation processes: An optimal simulation approach for operational simulations versus tactical simulations.
- Revised simulation roles and responsibilities: Specific SME roles created to support most complex simulations involving inventory, capacity, and contractual constraints using Mixed Integer Programming solver functionalities to optimize plans E2E.
- Enhanced collaboration between tactical and operational planners: Clearly differentiated collaboration processes to leverage collaborative simulation capabilities across different planning horizons and levels of aggregation.
- Speed and quality of decisions: Through automation and improved simulation functionalities in OMP, the speed and quality of complex simulation decision-making significantly improved.
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