Applying Technology
Trinity S&OP : Use Cases
- All
- Marketing
- Logistics
- Finance
- Procurement
- Production
- Maintenance
- Customer Service
- Utility
- Inventory
Vendor Purchase Decisions
Simultaneously evaluating different vendor offers, their bulk discounting while keeping in Production needs and Optimal working capital, demand seasonality can be tricky decision to make. XPlan S&OP does all this and more in a click.
Bottleneck Analysis
Capacity or other forms of bottleneck can be at multiple points in the value chain ranging from Vendor, Transport, Warehouse, Production, Policy, Capital Availability, Sales.
Comprehensive exploration of all possible ways in which demand and be met in most profitable manner is where XPlan S&OP strength lies in. Our users like how XPlan discovers these bottleneck dynamically as it keeps shifting with different cycles and disruptions.
Fleet Planning
World has realized the importance of Logistics fulfillment by looking at the Ecommerce giants. Own or 3PL, whatever the means of fulfillment, Fleet planning, sizing, contracting/chartering is important piece in the puzzle for high customer service level.
Rail, Road, Air, Ships or Pipeline have different dynamics for different industry verticals.
Integrated Planning with warehouse and production operations are important features in XPlan.
Production Planning
Production is the core of value chain. Inbound, outbound logistics support the process.
XPlan supports goods supply chain elements extensively and configuration of different production constraints like continuous / discrete process, recipes/BOM, routings, utility consumption, maintenance, transition sequence etc.
Supply / Distribution Planning
N-Tier networks, Inter-modal transport with Distribution centers (transshipment locations) are common in many commodity industries (Metals, Oil, Chemicals, Cement).
For commodities cost of transport is a significant cost component with respect to price realization of product itself and the volumes are high. This requires careful planning to keep production and sales in sync.
Inventory Capacity Leveling
Seasonality in demand, requires varying level of production capacity. In peak demand phase, building up inventory ahead of time is essential.
This needs careful planning, weighing in working capital considerations, prioritizing among product SKU's and even outsourcing decisions.
Profit Maximization, Cost Minimization
Each decision in value chain is associated with resource usage and is reflected in Financials in some way.
Right prioritization of customer, spot orders or profitable SKU can give a revenue boost.
Right choices in Vendor offers, correct campaign sizing, transport selection, parcel sizing, inventory levels managers the cost of goods sold (COGS) to a minimum given the demand fulfillment commitments. XPlan rich Supply chain Digital twin and advance Algorithms delivers best in class solution as compared and rule based heuristic algorithm or spreadsheet based solution.
Strategic Planning
Annual Operating, make-or-buy/subcontracting, Procurement, Chartering decisions require longer term planning say 1-5 years. Demand Supply balances, resource commitment needs to be done much ahead of time.
Outsourcing Decisions
Partners for Production, Services, Logistics operations compliment organization ability to serve. Level of outsourcing can be a fine balancing decision between cost, service level, control etc.
XPlan can help plan level of outsourcing while optimizing cost associated and ability to serve market needs.
Inventory Optimization
Inventory is the single most important element as all supply chain events is connected to it.
Right service level (days of stock) definition and planning supply chain around it is extremely important.
Too low an inventory, you run the risk of revenue loss and too high of inventory comes at excess working capital or at the cost of making other product available in market.
Revenue Optimization- Dynamic Pricing
Industry verticals like retail, FMCG, consumer services where product differentiation is possible, demand and price have inverse relationship.
Revenue and market share is highly dependent on promotions organized periodically.
Airlines, hospitality, ECommerce etc. verticals run campaigns wherein the price offered at different time are targeted to improve profit or revenue.
Multi-Modal N-Tier Network Modelling
Road, Rail, Cross Country Pipeline, Ship Vessels, Airline Cargo, Barges each have different economics, parcel sizing rules, availability and connectivity options for any company.
N Tier network with transshipment, multi-modal logistics management is considered critical to success factors for industry like, Oil and Gas, Retail, Logistics 3PL, Cement, Mining/Metals, Commodity & Food/Beverages being some of key ones.
XPlan handles transit lead times, parcel sizing, receiving location storage constraint among, multi-segment pipeline capacity management, fleet capacity constraint several several constraints.
Time and Voyage Chartering
Fleet planning, Time and Voyage chartering decisions are big financial decisions. Decision making requires planners to be precise about its utilization, several competing transport mode, availability, load building over multi-product, timing, economics given complex cascading impact in large network.
XPlan handles all this and more with ease and prescribes right combination of Time and voyage charters with other assisting last mile transport option in n-tier and multi-modal network optimization.
In-Transit & Parcel Sizing
Simplified planning can mislead you access to material availability time, if lead times are not considered during transportation. Also Transport resources are rarely underutilized in any trip, hence planning should consider the economics and such practices to stay relevant and plan optimally.
Right inventory management at sources, Distribution Centers/warehouses and customer nodes are integral part of On-time and In-Full (OTIF) improvement in Supply chain Management.
XPlan MILP algorithms fine tuned to handle large network optimization handles
Production Utilities Planning
Apart from Raw, WIP and FG material, planning for utilities play significant role in several industry verticals product capabilities and cost. Generally it is derived from production plan. Production planning can be blind sighted to assumed utility availability and real cost of utilities.
In XPlan utilities can be first grade citizens in planning, in its decision making of procurement, its own generation, constrained use and cost minimization function during Optimization. It has interesting usage in terms of Consumables like steam, power, electricity, packaging and even labour or metallurgical mould or tools availability.