|
|
Tweet |
|
Industry Resources |
Kinaxis RapidResponse Resources |
Oldies but Goodies |
||
|
For analyst interviews, industry commentary, and customer videos visit KinaxisTV |
||||
White Papers / E-Books
-
"One of the greatest fallacies when talking about planning is the belief that each part of the planning process is unique and therefore can be adequately performed in isolation. I don't believe that was ever really true, but it certainly isn't so in today's complex and volatile world.
"In reality, planning is a continuum, and each stage should be feeding the next and being informed by the previous. And with the volatility in today's business environment, the planning process should be a continuous one, no longer only performed on a fixed schedule. This is particularly pertinent when it comes to the demand and supply chain operations of a company."
Trevor Miles is a Kinaxis thought leader and is a regular contributor to the 21st Century Supply Chain Blog. In this ebook you will find excerpts and links to resources and content that Trevor has contributed over time on many relevant sub-themes supporting his vision of an integrated supply chain.
Supply Chain Response Management: It's Time to Embrace Volatility
By IndustryWeekBetter supply and demand planning outcomes means better business and operations performance, which is ultimately about the financials. Within a fairly narrow window of opportunity, improving agility by using supply chain response management tools can have an impact on both the top and bottom line. Adjusting and responding to changes as well as customer inquiries can mean the difference between losing business or winning a new customer. The ability to make faster and more profitable decisions enhances margins both internally and across the supply chain network. It's hard to find fault with that.
S&OP in the 21st century: Your system for navigating the modern business landscape
By KinaxisS&OP is about piloting your daily operations and monthly plans toward your long-term business goals. If your company isn't quite flying as high as you think it should be, this new S&OP e-book is here to help navigate your way to higher ground.
This e-book provides an overview of what an advanced S&OP process should look like and what it takes to get there. Flip through the pages to get a quick outline of the modern-day challenges, benefits, tips, and best practices for S&OP. If you want to dive deeper on any one topic, there are a multitude of links for you to access further resources such as blogs, surveys, research reports, and white papers. And of course, we added some lighter content just for laughs.
Who is this e-book for?
- Executives seeking a perspective of the evolution of S&OP and a description of S&OP as it applies to 21st century realities
- Executives and practitioners already engaged in S&OP who want to help move their companies to the next level
Evolving from Business Intelligence to Business Value
By KinaxisPure business intelligence (BI) tools suffer from two major drawbacks that prevent them from providing greater value and therefore obtaining greater adoption: They cannot identify causality and, as a consequence, they cannot provide a prediction of future performance. The promise of real-time operational BI that goes beyond the capturing of static data snapshots and enables users to identify and analyze risks and events, is of major interest to supply chain management (SCM) managers. Driven to improve operations performance, supply chain managers know that better information about their operations and processes lead to better decisions and better supply chain performance. This paper highlights what's at the heart of evolving business intelligence into business value.
7 Success Factors for Today's Supply Chain Projects
By KinaxisIn today's economic climate, no manufacturer can afford to fund any supply chain management (SCM) project that fails to deliver results. Fortunately, some best practices exist to guide companies through these projects and increase the chances of success. This white paper describes seven success factors for today's SCM projects, which have been identified by seasoned executives with decades of experience in the field.
Five Ways Your Procurement Could Be Leaving Money On The Table
By KinaxisEnterprises that provide their strategic procurement teams with proper tools can expect them to deliver year-over-year cost savings, close to 10 times their expenses.
This white paper
- lists five key pieces of intelligence that enable more effective supply management and procurement planning
- describes a real-life negotiation in which superior supply chain visibility and collaboration helped minimize a dramatic price hike attempted by a supplier
- presents a recent analyst's report that confirms the value of strategic procurement, and describes several key characteristics of the top-performing teams… especially how they exploit technology to gather this strategic intelligence and avoid leaving money on the table.
-
As companies outsource their manufacturing operations, they increase the number of tiers in the supply chain, greatly reducing their supply chain visibility and making them dependent on remote suppliers for operations performance results. To be truly effective, supplier collaboration needs to go far beyond the tactical exchange of data. Key suppliers must be brought into the decision-making process, so that brand owners can exchange early warnings and help resolve supply chain risk issues.
This paper discusses the value of a closer and more collaborative relationship with key suppliers and what is required to make that happen.
One-to-Many: Establishing a common platform to address multiple supply chain applications
By KinaxisWhat is needed in today's dispersed and loosely coupled supply chains are more collaboration, and less control; more coordination, and less optimization. Companies must have the ability to enable their front-line people to use their judgment to make fact based decisions which address the surprise and compromise inherent in today's global and multi-tier supply chains. At the heart of delivering these capabilities is the technical architecture of the supply chain solutions.
This paper describes the integrated set of capabilities that is required to satisfy the business needs of the 21st century supply chain.
-
Regardless of the markets served, most producers have a common need: to respond and adapt to changes in the marketplace faster than their competition does. By adopting Lean order management and fulfillment processes, a business gains superior operations performance and flexibility; thus increasing their competitive edge.
Since actual manufacturing and material lead-times are typically a small portion of total cycle time, reducing non-production administrative processes that have long cycle times can provide the most immediate impact.
Demand Planning: How to Reduce the Risk and Impact of Inaccurate Demand Forecasts
By KinaxisAs a general rule, forecasts are always inaccurate. This paper discusses two approaches which can be used to reduce the risk and impact of inaccurate demand forecasts:
- Collaboration between customers and suppliers to improve the accuracy of the forecast.
- Quicker response to demand changes to reduce the cost of forecast error.
By improving your demand planning and demand management processes, your organization can improve customer service (by being more responsive) as well as operations performance (by achieving inventory reductions).
Inventory Management: Inventory Rationalization and Right Sizing Strategies
By KinaxisWhen examining the crucial factors that are influencing operations performance during these tough economic times, inventory exposure is a topic raised frequently.
Appropriately rationalizing your company's inventory management strategies is of vital importance to business performance. Too much inventory, or inventory which is poorly positioned, can result in impacts on cost and cash flow that can be potentially fatal in the current business climate. The goal of an appropriate inventory strategy is to ensure that you can maximize your opportunities in the market place with as little inventory as possible. This takes a clear understanding of the various factors that should be considered including product positioning, demand volatility and supply chain disruption risks.
Essential Characteristics of a Supply Chain Risk Management Strategy
By KinaxisToday's leaner, global supply chains have become so vulnerable that many companies are incorporating supply chain risk management as a critical part of their business strategy. Proactive risk assessment and mitigation planning are no longer enough. Timely detection of unplanned events, collaborative analysis tools, alternative scenario comparisons, and fast, appropriate response are also required to avoid disastrous consequences from unanticipated disruptions in complex supply chains. An effective supply chain risk management strategy is an ongoing process and needs the support of robust tools that will enable you to:
- Assess risks such as political/financial instability, demand volatility, and severe weather
- Visualize and evaluate mitigation and response scenarios, respecting corporate goals
- Monitor situations and promptly alert staff when unexpected events require a response
- Determine appropriate actions and their consequences across the entire supply chain
- Respond quickly to events such as unanticipated supply disruptions—before it's too late
Download this white paper to fully understand the capabilities you need to effectively address both sides of supply chain risk management—mitigation and response.
-
Lean manufacturing is based on the concept that real customer demand can drive production—resulting in highly efficient, lean supply chains that deliver what customers want with much shorter lead times. To succeed at lean, a company must first adopt the philosophy, then use lean tools to apply it. Lean manufacturing tools go beyond established concepts like constraint planning and rough cut capacity planning; for instance, you can automate supply allocation to fill higher priority orders first. If you want to maximize utilization of resources and improve customer responsiveness, implementing lean practices will help you:
- Eliminate waste at every phase of production, including areas you may not have considered before
- Streamline work flow for improved efficiency and effectiveness
- Increase flexibility to handle frequent product and engineering changes—including new product introductions—while reducing work-in-progress inventory
- Access live, current data across the supply chain and beyond, eliminating information gaps that delay decision making
- Meet customer demand for higher quality products at lower cost, using less labor, less space, and less inventory
Go beyond Six Sigma quality: Lean Six Sigma is the next level to achieve optimum operations performance efficiency. Download this white paper to learn how to make your operation truly lean.
Achieving Supply Chain Visibility: There is More than Meets the Eye
By KinaxisThough everyone agrees on the importance of supply chain visibility, achieving it is only one step in solving the core problem manufacturers face: the need to respond quickly and effectively to constant change. Most "visibility" solutions focus only on finite business areas, leaving companies unable to efficiently handle the last-minute shifts so common in today's volatile and highly outsourced supply networks. Because of this, industry leaders are moving beyond mere supply chain visibility tools to capabilities and technologies that help companies:
- Leverage supply chain visibility across a complex multi-enterprise environment
- Support brand manager, CM, and supplier collaboration to avoid the "bullwhip effect" often caused by frequent changes
- Empower front-line staff to consolidate, modify, and analyze data and work together to choose the best solutions
- Drive fast, effective real time supply chain event management
- Reduce inventory, lower operating costs, and meet aggressive customer demands
Download this white paper to learn how you can transcend supply chain visibility to create a more responsive, efficient supply network and achieve greater business success.
-
The challenges of global supply chain management (SCM) have never been greater. Increased outsourcing, shrinking product lifecycles, intensifying economic pressures, and constant changes in supply, demand, and product make supply chain optimization harder than ever. Existing systems generate plans that become obsolete the moment they're finished, while spreadsheets and ad hoc databases lack the visibility and collaborative capabilities organizations need to swiftly and effectively monitor and respond to change. Yet today's on-demand supply chain management solutions offer new promise in enabling companies to:
- Understand opportunity and rapidly conduct risk trade-off and response
- Quickly and accurately analyze the impacts of proposed SCM solutions
- Manage external relationships and respond to unplanned events
- Give multiple users a single, real-time version of the truth
- Meet operations performance goals without overtaxing IT resources
Download this white paper to learn how on-demand supply chain management software can help you gain these benefits—and how to choose the right SCM solution for your business.
Why You Need to Re-evaluate Your Approach to Supply Chain Planning
By Kinaxis™The supply chain planning approach developed in the early 1990's is failing under today's market pressures. Today's environment requires more collaboration than control; more coordination than optimization. Demand and supply chain planning, monitoring and response needs to be performed by many users, on an ad hoc basis, as events occur. A new supply chain planning paradigm is required.
Structuring the Outsourced Supply Chain Data Model: 10 Critical Data Issues to Consider
By KinaxisIncreasing supply chain complexity (as a result of outsourced manufacturing operations) is driving the requirement for more complex supply chain planning data models. Learn about ten critical data issues that need to be considered when structuring a supply chain model for maximum utility. This paper covers capturing core data from partners, modeling contractual terms, and simulating supply alternative strategies.
Creating a robust data model that can best deliver a real time supply chain will drive superior operations performance and customer service. Is that not a strategic necessity in today's unforgiving business environment?
