Grupo Herdez is one of Mexico's leading manufacturers and distributors of grocery products and is a pioneer there in Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment. Eduardo Cantu explains some of the challenges to CPFR implementation in Latin America.
New product forecasting is one of the toughest demand management challenges, especially for the 15 to 20 percent of product launches that are "revolutionary." Charlie Chase, advisory industry consultant at SAS, explains how advances in technology are improving this process.
The technology surrounding point-of-sale data has improved tremendously in recent years and companies are making much better use of this information, says Tina Lalor, senior business consultant with John Galt Solutions.
In a multi-year, multi-phase project covering people, processes and technology, Red Wing Shoes streamlined and improved its S&OP process, cutting planning time from six weeks to three and reducing inventory by 27 percent.
Susan Golicic, associate professor at Colorado State University, discusses recent CSCMP sponsored research on the state of supply chain innovation. While there have been no game changers in the last decade, steady incremental innovation has led to significant performance improvements, she says.
The shift toward omnichannel distribution has both positive and negative unintended impacts. On the positive side are opportunities to blend and leverage channels; on the downside are organizational and operational gaps. Steven DeFazio, executive vice president at Fortna, offers insights on both.
Lora Cecere, CEO of Supply Chain Insights, discusses new research from her company designed to identify the top 15 supply chains as measured against their peers, including capabilities and strategies that these companies share.
The goal of intelligent transportation planning is to enable decisions based on what is happening across the entire supply chain, from upstream demand to downstream constraints, in order to create both value and resiliency, says Fabrizio Brasca, vice president of solutions strategy at JDA Software.
Having a visual map that overlays a company's key facilities, suppliers and lanes with actual or potential risks helps enable faster reaction to supply chain disruptions, says Chris Kushmaul, director of supply chain solutions at IDV Solutions.
The focus of RFID in the supply chain has shifted from case tagging to item tagging, says Ann Grackin, CEO of ChainLink Research. Grackin explains why this is so and details other areas of the supply chain where RFID is being embraced.