AI and human intervention During my time at MIT, I had the privilege of attending lectures by Jay W. Forrester, the founder of system dynamics. Forrester was a pioneer in modeling complex systems in economics, business, and technology. He was one of the first to recognize how technology could enhance decision-making and planning, yet he always...
If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that organizations are vulnerable. This year, once again, we see that supply and demand are often not in balance, leading to significant impacts on service and deliveries to customers, as well as the strain on production capacity and working capital. Consequently, many organizations nowadays...
S&OP may be a 40 year old concept, but it is developing at an increasing pace, enabled by the possibilities offered by the latest generation of Advanced Planning Systems.
Now that the finality of SAP APO is a real prospect, many companies are thinking about what to do next. In this blog, rather than providing advice about specific solutions such as Kinaxis, Anaplan, O9, SAP IBP or other options from the Gartner Magic Quadrant, I highlight four considerations that you should bear in mind.
With clients, we regularly encounter S&OP meetings where demand planners are challenged by the Sales director: “you present me a growth factor in the demand plan that is based on an analysis of mere historical data. So, how is the growth that will come from realizing the sales strategy incorporated?” And the ultimate consequence of this feedback...
Many companies are starting to enter a new phase in digital planning by applying machine learning. One of them is international coffee and tea manufacturer JacobsDouweEgberts (JDE). With its existing SAP APO tool due to be phased out, the company has been forced to look for a new planning solution. During a live and interactive session organized...
The term ‘digital planning’ is increasingly being mentioned in connection with supply chain management. So what is digital planning? Why the recent surge in interest? And, more importantly, what should you be doing about it? One thing is certain: based on the ever-faster pace of change, there’s no time to waste.
Digital planning is such a new topic offering so many possibilities that it can be difficult to know where to start. However, in view of the ever-widening gap between the businesses that work with digital planning and those that don’t, plus the fact that the next supply chain disruption is inevitably just around the corner, this is no longer...
The urgent need for supply chain resilience is becoming increasingly apparent in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, so it’s time to take action. In my view, IBP is a great place to start. But what should you bear in mind to ensure that the implementation is successful?
Digital planning is high on the agenda for many IT and supply chain directors. They often ask themselves ‘What’s the next step?’, ‘Which tooling should we use?’ and ‘How should we tackle the implementation?’ – and they usually consider those questions in that order. I would like to suggest reversing the order of the questions. First ask yourself...