Del Monte's Best Practice Tips for Becoming Demand-Driven

March 29, 2010 - The customer truly is boss at Del Monte Foods. In support of this philosophy, the company pulled off a collaborative feat that is rarely seen in the consumer goods industry: The information technology (IT) and supply chain teams willingly worked in concert to implement a highly-efficient, demand-driven operating model that is mining major benefits for its customers.

 

Here, three of Del Monte's senior executives -- Marc Brown, SVP Corporate Service Center and CIO; Dave Allen, SVP Supply Chain; and Robert Lim, VP, Production Planning Inventory Control -- share proven best practice tips for a successful supply chain transformation:

 

-- Always start with what's important to the customer. This will help drive prioritization and trade-off decisions.

-- Focus your efforts on being more responsive at the execution level to the customer.

-- Senior executive support is critical.

-- Destroy functional boundaries. The supply chain can't be successful if the sales team isn't a top service provider for their customers.

-- Don't over pilot. It is important to validate your model. However, you've got to be committed to a full organizational change and drive the impact on a more broad scale.

-- Deliver early results, but make sure the results are what matters to stakeholders. For example, forecast accuracy improvement is not as high on the sales team's list of priorities as improved case fill to customers is. Link these results to the process improvement initiative.

-- Plan on having to course correct, and when the time comes, do it decisively, and make sure your technology partners can work at the same speed.

 

To find out more about Del Monte's recent supply chain transformation, read our March cover story "Customers Come First".