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January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
Keeping Up with Supply Chain Innovation at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics
As important as ERP and MRP systems may be to a company, supply chain visibility is critical to employ what-if analysis in a controlled environment, says Mike Keltz, IT integrator at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.
January 2012: Bankok Post
PM in our SCM, SCM in our PM
Adding to that, not just one but two current clients are realising that a major reason why they are not improving the way they should be in managing their supply chain is that they are so poor at managing the projects. This includes both internal improvement and customer projects. And then, in the middle of this musing, came an item from our regular favourite blog, The 21st Century Supply Chain from Kinaxis software...
January 2012: Business 2 Community
YouTube Killed the TV Star: Why Online Video Marketing is Essential for Marketers in 2012
Entertaining videos: Kinaxis, offering on-demand software for supply chain management, showcases a series of videos poking fun at the challenges associated with large supply chain environments. As of April 2010, the company had more than tripled its leads, and was able to increase the number of registered community members by 38%.
January 2012: ServiceVantage blog
Top 10 Client Focused People
Rob Bell, VP Support & I.T (www.Kinaxis.com) Rob is one of a kind. He has managed many different groups at Kinaxis and the client is always front and center in everything he does. For Rob, the client (rightfully so) is the center of the universe and he ensures that his entire team understands the importance of being their “trusted advisor”. He has a solid, client-focused reputation within Kinaxis and throughout their entire client base. ........... John Sicard, Chief Operating Officer, (www.Kinaxis.com) Kinaxis is a world-class, client-focused, technology company with an incredible team. Being one the original members of this team, John has worked in many, many capacities throughout the years and is one of the driving forces behind Kinaxis’ industry leading reputation. He has tremendous subject matter expertise and ensures that the various teams that report to him zero in on what is best for their clients. Development, Marketing, Support, Services, Training, etc., all think “client” in everything they do and produce. Kinaxis’ reputation is well deserved – and John’s client-centricity and ability to surround himself with excellent client-focused people is at the heart of it.
January 2012: Supply Chain Digest
Supply Chain Comment: Are Boeing's Supplier Stress Tests Defeating the Point of Outsourcing in the First Place?
Duncan Klett, VP of Analytics Research at supply chain software provider Kinaxis, sent in a letter based on the article with a simple question: If this is the kind of effort it takes to get the supply base to perform, is the outsourcing strategy even worth it? "The original arguments for outsourcing/contract manufacturing were lower cost and allowing the customer to focus on its primary business and not need to manage production processes outside its core/critical competence," Klett wrote. "For new and/or state of the art production processes, it sounds like the risks and management requirements have not been reduced by outsourcing."
January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
Celestica's Supply Chain Collaboration Center (free registration required to view video)
Celestica's collaborative initiative comprises three elements – inventory visibility, much closer relations with suppliers, and optimized inventory management, says Erwin Hermans, vice president of supply chain solutions at the contract manufacturer. [Run Time (Min.): 12:22]
January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
Streamlining Global Sales and Operations Planning at D&M Holdings (free registration required to view video)
D&M Holdings, a collection of disparate electronics companies with different ERP and S&OP processes, needed a global approach to sales and operations planning, says Lalit Panda, the company's chief information officer. [Run Time (Min.): 12:59]
January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
Addressing Demand Volatility in Today's Business Environment (free registration required to view video)
Without a doubt, demand volatility is the number one challenge for companies today, whether they are in the CPG, electronics or industrial products verticals, says Kevin O'Marah, senior research fellow at the Stanford Global Supply Chain Forum. [Run Time (Min.): 7:16]
January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
Turning Supply Chain Risk Into Opportunity at Jabil (free registration required to view video)
The cost of managing risk can't be allowed to outweigh the value of the supply chain, says Joe McBeth, vice president, supply chain, at Jabil. But there are unknowns that have to be planned for. [Run Time (Min.): 8:58]
January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
Responsiveness, Flexibility & Scalability at Qualcomm
Qualcomm found that its old planning solution didn't permit the rapid response or the ability to scale required to meet volatility of demand, says Tom Tael, the company's senior manager for business processes. [Run Time (Min.): 8:56]
January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
Multi-Enterprise Collaboration: The Next Generation (free registration required to view video)
For decades the focus has been on planning better, but that isn't good enough anymore, says John Sicard, chief operating officer at Kinaxis. Response to plan variance is what's required now. [Run Time (Min.): 8:54]
January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
Managing Supplier Partnerships at Varian Semiconductor (free registration required to view video)
Customers want shorter lead times for products, and suppliers want to be leaner, says Thomas LeBlanc, master scheduler at Varian Semiconductor. That requires a balance if one is to have a successful supply chain. [Run Time (Min.): 6:09]
January 2012: SupplyChainBrain
The Control Tower: Breaking Down Enterprise Barriers! (free registration required to view video)
There are no more silos when everyone works with the same data and the same enterprise planning and simulation platform, says Doug Colbeth, Kinaxis CEO. [Run Time (Min.): 10:27]
December 2011: Supply & Demand Chain Executive
Keys to Making the Financial Supply Chain More Efficient
According to John Sicard, chief operating officer, Kinaxis in Ottawa, Canada, profitability management must become a priority for every part of the operation—not just for finance. Multiple functions must be able to model costs across various dimensions to enable real-time profitability management. “By running ‘what-if’ scenarios using real operational data, key stakeholders can understand the financial implications of supply and demand changes both before and when they happen,” he says. “Companies that adopt an operational control tower model, which integrates multiple business processes with supply chain operations, will be able to instantaneously analyze the financial effects when reality deviates from the plan.”
November 2011: Ottawa Business Journal
Kinaxis: Ottawa's Next Cognos?
John Sicard thinks he can top Ottawa's biggest software success story....OCRI's 2011 Company of the Year is debt-free, profitable and has seen revenues grow in each of the last five years.
November 2011: Ottawa Citizen
Last chance for high-tech?
- Douglas Colbeth, the CEO of Kinaxis, a 16-year-old Kanata firm that develops software that allows firms to manage their supply chains. Colbeth is the former CEO of Spyglass, the U.S. pioneer whose technology underpins Internet Explorer, the search engine owned by Microsoft.
November 2011: InformationWeek
The Supply Chain Challenge Never Ends
I spent an extremely entertaining and informative day with Kinaxis at their user conference last month, and it struck me how much supply chain management seems to be stuck in the past, even as it increasingly occupies one of the hottest of hot seats in the corporate world, and even as companies like Kinaxis strive to bring the supply chain into the future.
November 2011: Bangkok Post
Experiencing and handling volatility and complexity
Readers will recall that in recent months we referenced a posting from one of our favourite supply chain oriented blogs, "The 21st Century Supply Chain" from Kinaxis. Their thought-leader, Trevor Miles, shared content from a presentation by Jane Barrett at this year's Gartner Supply Chain conference in which she used VUCA to describe the current business environment and its effect on the supply and value chains, saying that companies are thinking about how they cope with this volatility and uncertainty in the supply chain so that they can respond profitably.
November 2011: 360 ERP Blog
Top Ten Predictions for ERP in 2012
#2 Shake-up in the Tier I space. This coming year may be when we finally see a shakeup among the big Tier I ERP vendors. While SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics certainly aren’t likely to lose their foothold as the Big 3 of the ERP software market, we do expect that some of the larger Tier IIs are going to pose legitimate challenges to their market share and reach. For example, after their acquisition of Lawson, Infor is just a couple steps behind the traditional Tier II players, while companies such as IFS, Epicor, Kinaxis, and QAD are continuing their aggressive growth, especially in the SMB space.
November 2011: Supply Chain Digital
Top 10: Supply Chain Blogs
Supply Chain Digital breaks down the Top 10 supply chain blogs that you should your eye on. #3 The 21st Century Supply Chain Blog
September 2011: Ottawa Business Journal
HONG KONG: Asia’s widening gateway
Along with selling to Asian-headquartered companies, it [the Hong Kong office] also collaborates with Kinaxis sales teams in other countries to land contracts with large multinational firms, a role that takes on added importance as companies move more executive control over supply chains into Asia.
August 2011: EBN
The Cure for Chronic Inventory Distress
...Segmentation will drive substantial operational changes in your supply chain execution, the most visible of which will stem from your planning approach. It's likely that 80 percent of your product will slot into the longer lifecycle/lower volatility segments, which is a great fit for highly automated ERP systems. This frees up resources to focus on the 10 percent to 20 percent of products with shorter lifecycles -- the ones likely creating most of your inventory distress. These products are better suited to complex predictive analytics, collaboration tools such as Kinaxis, and a high level of expert intervention...
July 2011: Supply Chain Matters
Kinaxis RapidResponse Spring 2011 Release is Impressive
Overall, we remain impressed with the progress and functionality enhancements of RapidResponse and believe that Kinaxis installed base customers and prospects should be impressed as well.
July 2011: SupplyChainBrain (free login required)
S&OP: What’s It Really About?
Video: The definition of the term can be hard to nail down, says Trevor Miles, director of thought leadership with Kinaxis. He offers his view on why so many companies seem stuck in the early stages of maturity with their S&OP efforts, and how they might move forward.
July 2011: Enterra Insights (formerly known as Enterprise Resilience Management Blog)
Have you heard about supply chain control towers?
From my perspective, the application of the control tower concept only to distribution is a fairly narrow use of a very powerful concept. A multi-tier control tower in the high-tech/electronics space that spans customer location, the OEM, several contract manufacturers, and component suppliers has much greater likelihood of both success and benefit. ...
June 2011: OCRI TV
Swimming with the Sharks - The Kinaxis Story
John Sicard, executive vice president, marketing, development and service operations and Mark Mototsune, vice president, R&D are interviewed about the company's history (including its bumps along the road); transition to SaaS; management model and style; marketing strategies; and future strategic initiatives.
June 2011: 20/20 Pharma
Making a Sound Investment in ERP (see page 62)
Panel discussion facilitated by Merck's Senior Business Process Lead for SAP Supply Chain Master Data, Reid Graves. Experts in the field featured on the panel with Reid include Trevor Miles of Kinaxis, Joe Miles of SAP and Tom Heinricher of Sage. Related podcast: http://www.2020pharma.com/podcast/making-sound-investment-erp (free registration required)
May 2011: Gartner
Case Study: How Amgen Reinvigorated Its Supply Planning Process (client access report)
Long supply cycle times require life science manufacturers to balance supply commitments, capacity management and product expiry issues. One global biotech company, Amgen, centralized elements of its planning processes and deployed a rapid planning tool to more effectively balance these requirements.
May 2011: SupplyChainBrain
What Is This Thing Called S&OP?
Kinaxis “thought leader” Trevor Miles views quick responsiveness as a critical corrective to the errors that plague any demand forecast. Speaking at the IE Group’s recent High-Tech Forecasting & Planning Innovation conference in San Francisco, he noted that forecast errors by the top consumer packaged goods companies range between 19 and 43 percent. S&OP can help to offset that shocking gap by enabling them to plan for variance.
April 2011: OCRI.TV
2011 OCRI Company of the Year Award presented to Kinaxis
OCRI Company of the Year presented to Kinaxis in recognition for their successful core service, RapidResponse
April 2011: Ottawa Business Journal
Kinaxis named OCRI Company of the Year
Its patented RapidResponse solution has drawn praise for being easy to use and able to deploy across various types of businesses, and in past years was picked up by luminaries ranging from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin to camera-maker Olympus. "We've been active but one of Ottawa's best-kept secrets for a long time," said John Sicard, the chief operating officer, in an OBJ interview moments after receiving the award. "What we hope OCRI's award will do is bring us out."
March 2011: Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) - free registration required
S&OP Newcomer Asserts Notable Domain Expertise
Q&A with Trevor Miles: "I see S&OP and IBP as separate topics. One of the greatest fallacies in the industry is that each planning process is unique and isolated, and that each requires a separate tool with a separate data structure, analytics, and user interface (UI). In reality, planning is a continuum, and each stage should be feeding the next and being informed by the previous."
February 2011: Francis-Moran.com
Making the SaaS model work for you as a vendor
Offering customers this option versus the traditional model of selling boxes of CDs in shrink wrap is a “price of admission capability for software companies these days,” Rob Bell, director of service operation and corporate IT for Kinaxis, said at OCRI’s #smarTALKS event last night.
February 2011: Ottawa Citizen
OCRI names 36 awards finalists (Kinaxis named as finalist for Technology Company of the Year)
The awards, from the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) economic development agency, honour such categories as technology company of the year, health innovation, most promising startup and, for 2011, an added category: "solution" of the year. Kinaxis named as finalist for Technology Company of the Year.
February 2011: Chief Content Officer
Supply Chain Love - B2B is no longer boring
"The reputation of being a world leader comes from the quality of the products you deliver, and in the way your company behaves," Ms. Watson said. "In the end your brand and what it stands for is ultimately determined by the markets you serve, not by you in that big office tower."
January 2011: Fearless Competitor (by Find New Customers)
Laugh and Learn featuring the Fearless Competitor – Top B2B Ideas of 2010 – The Winner!
In this special edition, we announce the winner of the 2010 Best B2B marketing idea. The Linkedin community has spoken too and they agree. Congratulations to our winner! Kinaxis with their remarkable series – Suitemates (www.suitemates.com).

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