Johnsonville Sausage: A Case for Integrating Supply and Demand
Supply chains are extremely complex these days, but not impossible to manage, especially if you have the right tools in place to provide visibility to decision makers. So, what happens when supply and demand are managed in a truly coordinated fashion? During a CGT Web seminar on May 28, 2009, Ron Gilson, CIO of Johnsonville Sausage, revealed how the food company improved its visibility and responsiveness via an integrated supply chain planning and execution platform.
Johnsonville's new approach to planning included the implementation of a single, comprehensive supply chain planning platform, phasing out legacy planning solutions. Results of the roll out include a faster response time to dynamic market conditions via daily forecasting capabilities and increased on-shelf availability with vendor managed inventory planning and simulation.
Gilson also offered attendees some lessons learned: "All of our projects are led by the business, not IT. That was key to getting the proper business decisions made. Test. Test. Test. I think that was also one of the key success factors for us -- getting all of our planners into the test system and running actual numbers so they could feel comfortable that the number was right before we went live."
Simon Ellis, practice director, Supply Chain Strategies for Manufacturing Insights, an IDC company, was also on hand to share the top 10 predictions for supply chains in 2009. Ellis said, "As companies struggle a bit with the current economy, and really seem to take a capital preservation approach to making investments, or not making investments, we did make some suggestions about where we felt where it was important to continue to invest."
Some areas of investment should include: improving product management decisions; unifying product lifecycle management applications to streamline processes; supply chain optimization; deploying integrated supply network and optimization tools where ROI may be attractive in an economic environment of cost control; modernize operations and value chains; and governance, risk and compliance/global trade management.
Jeff Van Pelt, industry principal, Consumer Products for SAP, rounded out the Web seminar by sharing his views on supply chain visibility. "Creating that fundamental foundational element of data and then having a platform of applications and business process expertise that you can layer that on top of that is the way that companies are going to be successful in the future."
To listen to this Web event in its entirety, click here.
Johnsonville's new approach to planning included the implementation of a single, comprehensive supply chain planning platform, phasing out legacy planning solutions. Results of the roll out include a faster response time to dynamic market conditions via daily forecasting capabilities and increased on-shelf availability with vendor managed inventory planning and simulation.
Gilson also offered attendees some lessons learned: "All of our projects are led by the business, not IT. That was key to getting the proper business decisions made. Test. Test. Test. I think that was also one of the key success factors for us -- getting all of our planners into the test system and running actual numbers so they could feel comfortable that the number was right before we went live."
Simon Ellis, practice director, Supply Chain Strategies for Manufacturing Insights, an IDC company, was also on hand to share the top 10 predictions for supply chains in 2009. Ellis said, "As companies struggle a bit with the current economy, and really seem to take a capital preservation approach to making investments, or not making investments, we did make some suggestions about where we felt where it was important to continue to invest."
Some areas of investment should include: improving product management decisions; unifying product lifecycle management applications to streamline processes; supply chain optimization; deploying integrated supply network and optimization tools where ROI may be attractive in an economic environment of cost control; modernize operations and value chains; and governance, risk and compliance/global trade management.
Jeff Van Pelt, industry principal, Consumer Products for SAP, rounded out the Web seminar by sharing his views on supply chain visibility. "Creating that fundamental foundational element of data and then having a platform of applications and business process expertise that you can layer that on top of that is the way that companies are going to be successful in the future."
To listen to this Web event in its entirety, click here.