Casio responds to continuous supply and demand changes in real time.

Casio Computer Co. Ltd., is one of the leading consumer electronics companies in the world. Since its establishment in 1957, Casio has been active in the development of electronic calculators, timepieces, musical instruments, LCD TVs, pagers and other communications devices. Casio's corporate activities are guided by the motto: "Creativity and Contribution."

The Casio Challenge

It is critical for a company with a diverse product group like Casio to continually deliver cutting-edge products to meet demanding consumer needs. To do this the company needs to ensure manufacturing operations efficiency and visibility of information across multiple departments and operations. They also have to constantly find opportunities to reduce supplier lead times so that products, especially new products, get to market faster.

Casio deployed a supply chain planning system from 1999 to 2002 to accomplish this visibility and efficiency. However, production lead times were still at an unacceptable level and inventory reduction was far below Casio's targets. This system also failed to address changes in demand and supply effectively, so the users had to deal with these manually. All in all, Casio was not satisfied with the system that did not deliver on its promises.

The Kinaxis Advantage: Performance and Flexibility

Casio chose Kinaxis™ RapidResponse™ as it allows them to collaborate and respond rapidly to any changes in supply and demand. This has helped shorten their lead times and significantly reduce their inventory levels. Calculations that had previously taken 3 hours to run can now be completed in less than 50 seconds. RapidResponse provides visibility across the supply chain and allows various alternatives to be considered and scored in just seconds, allowing Casio to make decisions that best align to their corporate objectives. Furthermore, RapidResponse can be used by anyone in manufacturing operations to determine a problem, collaborate on the options and rapidly drive effective response.

Adding up the Benefits

RapidResponse has enabled Casio to improve daily operations efficiency in materials, logistics and manufacturing operations. Even more importantly, it has improved enterprise efficiency and flexibility with closer supplier collaboration, allowing Casio to be more competitive in the marketplace. "Casio is planning broad use of RapidResponse which can effectively align demand and supply in spite of continuous changes," concludes Atsushi Yazawa, General Manager, Information Technology Department, Casio Computer Co., Ltd.

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