While many distributors struggle with the pace of change in the industry, forward-thinking companies are taking advantage of intelligent demand, replenishment and distribution planning technologies to gain a competitive edge.
With a clear understanding of demand, and how to optimally serve their customers, these distributors are able to offer outstanding customer service at a competitive price.
With a large number of items, constant product updates, phase-ins and discontinuations, demand planners have their work cut out for them. Optimity’s solution helps decipher the most complex demand patterns and turn them into highly accurate forecasts. A user-friendly tool for both internal and external collaboration ensures that guesswork and gut-feel is replaced by real market intelligence.
A distributor’s ability to create optimized replenishment plans is directly reflected on the bottom line. Getting it right can be a difficult task, especially when dealing with large multi-echelon networks. With Optimity you will know exactly what, when and how much to order, for each location and from which supplier. Your replenishment plan will be optimized across your entire network, no matter how complex it is.
When you’re managing thousands of SKUs, all with different demand patterns, service levels, shelf-lives and storage constraints, a high degree of automation is needed. Without the right tools, both customer service and profits will suffer. Optimity supports automated ABC classification of each SKU. This provides the focus and structure your planners need to manage the volume of items and to make informed decisions. With inventory and replenishment parameters automatically optimized, more time can be spent on dealing with the most critical issues.
Distributors have to balance the risk of shortages with inventory carrying costs. Optimity dynamically calculates the optimal safety stock level and replenishment volume and frequency for each item and location. This allows you to meet your service level targets at the lowest possible cost. And in the event you’re unable to fully replenish the safety stock, the system will dynamically allocate what’s available in the best way possible.
Optimity will account for any distribution and storage constraint you may have. Reduce cost by making sure procurement is made in full containers, or that full truckloads are used wherever possible. Optimity will also find the best sourcing option, including the option of redistributing excess inventory from within the supply chain.
The tool is very intuitive to work with and the speed at which optimized plans and scenarios can be generated is invaluable. It’s a real decision support tool for the business and so fundamentally different from our old Excel approach.
With more trustworthy demand plans, we can not only serve our customers better with less stock, but we can also plan our sourcing to get better prices, and avoid expensive spot market purchases.
It gives planners the power to make effective planning decisions quickly and easily.
Optimity has the right strategy, tons of experience and above all an easy-to-use system that helps our planners do their job and to optimize based on what creates value.
It’s the buffer that ensures you can manage the fluctuations in demand and supply. You want to find the optimal mix so that you can ensure excellent service levels, but at the same time not tie-up capital in surplus stock. Read the white paper and learn how you find the right balance.
