MagazineDS MagazineDSGoldCity Kicks theSpreadsheet Habit

Thailand shoe manufacturerrevamps forecasting

process usingDemand Solutions

GoldCity Kicks theSpreadsheet Habit

Thailand shoe manufacturerrevamps forecasting

process usingDemand Solutions

VOLUME 12 / ISSUE 1 / 2012

suppliers’ suppliers, or alternative Tier One suppliers. Consider developing a risk management profile of your supply chain. To develop it, you might research the vulnerabilities of your key suppliers, look at potential substitute suppliers and examine the value of dividing your orders to reduce risk, even if that means losing a degree of volume discounting.

Our Demand Solutions supply chain planning software has dramatically improved the accuracy of users’ forecasts. We see the best results when demand managers use it as a tool to collaborate with key partners — sales staff who are in daily contact with major customers, the customers themselves who are identifying opportunities and weaknesses in their inventories — and with manufacturing which is responsible for supplying the goods for sale, and with the chief financial officer who is often pleasantly amazed at the information he suddenly has at his fingertips.

Maximizing the value of Demand Solutions is not a one-shot event. The software dramatically improves forecast accuracy while sharply reducing the amount of staff time required. That provides a valuable base of improvement and also frees up staff to extend their supply chain activities to include some in-depth looks at key issues such as transportation, vulnerable ports or air routes, the impact of storms and floods and other potential breaks in the supply chain. Just ask Surasak Jinapun, managing director at GoldCity Shoe in Thailand, quoted in our cover story.

Demand Solutions can provide the beginnings of a broad and deep assessment of supply chain threats to achieve the proverbial transformation of problems into opportunities.

Sincerely,

Bill HarrisonPresident

Real life has a way of interfering with even the most efficient supply

chain strategies. In the last year or so, we have twice seen planes grounded for days because of a volcano no one outside of Iceland had ever heard of, let alone could pronounce. European car plants faced shutdowns for lack of parts. On the other side of the world in Asia where Demand

Solutions has expanded greatly in the past year, an earthquake, tsunami and the threat of radioactive leaks curtailed power supplies and cut production at Japanese factories.

East Coast snowstorms just after Christmas shut down the area from Washington to Boston for several days while tornadoes and floods destroyed or impaired businesses across the mid-South and the Mississippi River Basin during the spring.

Just in Time (JIT) production strategies, which have saved companies billions over the decades by reducing inventory and its carrying costs, allow parts and products to be delivered to factories or retailers as they are needed rather than stacked high to await demand. This strategy minimizes storage space and reduces carrying costs so the entire process becomes a smooth flow from producers to consumers — at least until the next natural disaster.

When the weather starts becoming as unpredictable as, well, the weather, so goes the old cliché, what’s a demand planner to do? Start by focusing on the issues, especially the risks — both the knowns and the unknowns, to borrow from Donald Rumsfeld.

Whatever the disaster, producers and consumers will still want their needs met. In addition, most disasters create heavy new demands — think batteries, snow shovels, chain saws, water pumps and Pop Tarts — a favorite disaster food because they pack some energy punch and are easy to store and eat.

Benefiting from the unparalleled advantages of 20/20 hindsight, inventory experts noted that while business consumers usually know their Tier One suppliers, few know much about their

OPENING Letter

Maximizing the value of Demand Solutions is not a one-shot event. The software dramatically improves forecast accuracy while sharply reducing the amount of staff time required.

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Editor: Ashley Kleffer | 2012

4 DS News �

5 Furmano Foods � Furmano Foods, a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of vegetable food products,

overcomes unique forecasting challenges with Demand Solutions Forecast Management while increasing efficiency and accuracy.

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8 Volpi Salami � St. Louis crafter of Artisan meats, Volpi Salami, uses Demand Solutions Forecast

Management and Requirements Planning to forecast for an increasingly diverse line of products that are moving into new markets abroad.

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10 GoldCity Shoe � Thailand’s GoldCity Shoe, a manufacturer of globally distributed footwear,

gives spreadsheets the boot in favor of Demand Solutions Forecast Management, streamlining its forecasting process for a complex supply chain.

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13 DSX � DSX’s flexibility helps the product gain market acceptance among companies around

the globe. Read what users are saying about the advantages of Demand Solutions enterprise level supply chain software.

�

16 Hagen � Rolf C. Hagen, Inc., an international pet food and products company, expands its

usage of Demand Solutions Forecast Management to locations outside of North America to forecast demand in the European market at its French subsidiary.

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18 5.11 Tactical � As a producer of tactical gear for police, firefighters, and military personnel,

California-based 5.11 Tactical sees spectacular benefits from implementing Forecast Management and Requirements Planning.

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20 Friendly’s Ice Cream Corporation � Friendly’s Ice Cream Corporation in Massachusetts is a 15–year Demand Solutions

veteran customer. It’s only fitting that a company with such a rich heritage should use one of the most time-tested forecasting software tools on the market.

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21 Summer Infant � Summer Infant, a manufacturer of baby products from Rhode Island, overhauls its

supply chain and shortens forecasting time using Demand Solutions.

TABLE of Contents

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DS News

Demand Solutions Sweeps 2011 Awards

Over the last year, Demand Solutions and our customers were recognized with several awards from trade publications in the Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Logistics fields. In January, Demand Solutions President Bill Harrison

was selected as one of Supply & Demand Chain Executive’s “2011 Pros to Know” for the third consecutive year. The company also won the Consumer Goods Technology 2011 Readers Choice Award for supply chain excellence.

Managing Automation magazine chose Demand Solutions customer Certified Transmission Rebuilders as a 2011 Progressive Manufacturing 100 winner for their implementation of Demand Solutions Advanced Planning & Scheduling software and Supply & Demand Chain Executive chose the same implementation as one of their “100 Great Supply Chain Projects.”

Supply Chain Brain also named Demand Solutions as one of their 100 Great Supply Chain Partners for the year and Inbound Logistics honored the company as a Top 100 Logistics IT Provider.

DS News

Demand Management, Inc. Wins 2011 Microsoft ISV of the Year for the U.S.

As a result of exceptional performance in the Microsoft Dynamics field, Demand Management, Inc. was awarded the 2011 Microsoft Dynamics ISV of the Year Award for the U.S. at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles.

Microsoft takes into account key criteria for this special recognition including outstanding sales performance, thorough technological expertise on Microsoft Dynamics products and services, consistently high level of customer satisfaction, and feedback from Microsoft team members.

“Each year, it is a privilege for us to recognize the innovative contributions made by organizations within our diverse Microsoft Dynamics partner community,” said Doug Kennedy, vice president, Microsoft Dynamics Partners. “Demand Solutions serves as a leader within this community because of the value it provides through its solutions, as well as its exceptional levels of customer service.

We are proud to congratulate Demand Solutions on being named as our top Microsoft Dynamics partner of the year in the U.S.”

Demand Solutions Partners with enVista

Demand Solutions announced in May that the company has formed a strategic alliance with enVista®, a leading enterprise and supply chain consulting services firm based in Indiana.

The partnership will enable mutual customers to leverage the benefits, savings and robust capabilities of demand planning and forecast management solutions, along with supply chain management offerings and expertise.

Global ExpansionDemand Solutions expanded

heavily into Asia Pacific and Latin America recently, adding offices in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Japan, Shanghai and Singapore as well as Russia, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Hungary in Europe.

To continue expanding globally, Demand Solutions has also expanded its language offerings of the Demand Solutions products to include Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, German, Spanish and French. With the newest Swedish office addition and a new customer in Iceland, the company now has offices globally representing customers in 75 countries.

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Forecasting That’s Ripe with Success

For over 90 years, Furmano’s has been making great tasting, healthy and nutritious tomato, bean and vegetable products. In 1921, Furmano’s started by canning 360 glass jars from a bumper crop of tomatoes and selling them to a handful of local merchants. Today, the company supplies 750 customers over 1,200 finished good items. Due to

the complexity of fresh pack and continuous pack vegetable products, Furmano’s had some unique forecasting challenges. Until April of 2009, the company was faced with a forecasting engine that was too complex, inefficient and inaccurate.

“It was poor planning on our part,” stated Alisa Shrawder, demand planning coordinator. “We didn’t have a clear vision of how we would implement the forecasting system. The software we selected was very good, but it was too dependent on outside salespeople’s input into the system. When you’re talking about brokers and salespeople, they had other priorities and learning the technology was very difficult.”

Furmano’s original intent was to export a forecast to an advanced planning system, which would feed to the advanced scheduling system, and then the ERP system for execution. But the company never really developed a forecast before they started using Forecast Management from Demand Solutions.

“We never got to the point where we had a forecast that we felt was reliable,” explained Shrawder. “Because our old forecasting system was so complex and dependent on multiple input and multiple levels, we could not get our forecast accuracy where it needed to be. We attempted it — we were feeding information from our demand planning system, but we had issues with that — the data wasn’t making sense, so we never really got far with a formal forecast.” After implementing Demand Solutions Forecast Management, she is able to effectively manage the forecasting by herself and in a much shorter period of time.

Furmano Foods

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“Our old forecasting system consumed about two weeks of my time each month. After we started using Forecast Management, the actual time spent on it is significantly lower, around two days,” said Shrawder. Not only is there less time spent on creating the forecast, but it also takes less time to manage it. Shrawder has been able to streamline the process to eliminate a lot of steps that had to be done manually with the old forecasting system.

“Prior to using Forecast Management, if we lost a customer or discontinued a product, it was difficult to go in and turn that forecast off because we had to do it at so many levels. I couldn’t make that change in one place and have it carry through to all the other places,” said Shrawder. “Now I have it set up so I don’t have to do anything. I don’t worry about it because once the new data is imported I have it set up to automatically turn off the forecast for customers or products if they are no longer active. If either becomes active again, the forecast is automatically turned back on.”

Founded in 1921 by J.W. Furman and his wife, Emma, Furmano’s is a family owned company nestled in the heart of the Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania. Furmano Foods produces canned vegetable products for both the retail grocery and foodservice segments selling over 11 million cases of product a year. Furmano’s continues to be committed to the family values and traditions that it was founded on 90 years ago.

Furmano Foods

Many of Furmano’s products are made to order and packaged under various brand names including their own, so their main forecasting concern was not so much at the product level as it was the “brite” — the individual, unbranded, temporarily unlabeled package — level. Fifty percent of their 200–300 “brite” items are seasonal.

“Because of the seasonal nature of our business, we have the complexity of managing both fresh pack (packed once a year to be used until the next pack season), and continuous pack items (packed throughout the year). Demand Solutions Forecast Management was able to help us increase our forecast accuracy and deal with the complexity of our business,” said Shrawder.

“One area where we experienced a significant improvement was with our co-pack items. Before implementing Forecast Management we were only at around 40 percent forecast accuracy. Now we are up to 86 percent,” explained Shrawder. Co-pack products are purchased from someone else to complement what Furmano’s already produces and sells so the goal is to keep

that inventory lean. “We had a lot of out-of-stocks, but now our purchasing manager is getting more accurate information from Demand Solutions Forecast Management and is able to stay on top of the business. This means more consistent order fill rates, higher case fill rates, and happier customers.”

Since implementing Forecast Management two years ago, Furmano’s has experienced improved accuracy in all three of the main planning categories. In fact, forecast accuracy has increased by 12 percent overall. “We’re on an upward trend with overall forecast accuracy currently at 87 percent,” said Shrawder.

In the interest of keeping with popular demand, Furmano’s is now branching into new product categories such as organic, low-sodium, all-natural products, and new packaging options that will continue to add to the complexity of their forecasting system, but Shrawder is confident that the Demand Solutions forecasting tool will be able to continue handling these intricacies with ease.

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Furmano Foods

How Furman Farms Became “Furmano Foods”

John Wesley Furman founded Furman Farms in 1921 in the heart of the Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania. The company began with a core offering of tomato products in glass jars. In the 1930s, the line included a variety of vegetables and became a larger scale operation. In the 1940s, a second generation of Furmans took over the farm and renamed it J.W. Furman Cannery. The operation was expanded to include industrial size cans for foodservice. In 1962, Foster Furman (John Wesley’s son) had a fateful meeting with an upstate New York broker who told him that in order to market tomato products, the brand name should sound more Italian. He recommended adding an “o” to the end. So the Furmano’s brand was born. The company’s name changed again in 1984 to Furman Foods to reflect the varieties of packaging available for their products. And, as of 2004, the company has done business as “Furmano Foods” to be consistent with the Furmano brand name.

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Management and Requirements Planning, our service levels have increased significantly. They used to be around 80 percent, but now that we have better control of inventory on hand as well as calculated forecast needs, we are able to more accurately fulfill customer orders. Our service levels have risen to 98 percent.” The high fulfillment rate presents Volpi with a strong advantage over competitors.

Volpi has not only increased its customer service levels with Demand Solutions, but Kalkan said inventory management practices have allowed her to gain one full inventory turn in the past year.

“Since we have implemented the Demand Solutions Forecast Management tool, we have also reduced our expired product rate two to five percent from what we had in the past,” said Kalkan.When asked about creating forecasts prior to Demand Solutions, Kalkan recalled the time-consuming process of manipulating Excel pivot table data and running macros manually.

“We had to use our accounting software to create the pivot table with sales history information, then we used that information to plan the future demand. It took hours of planning,” she explained.

“When it was all said and done, we had spent days creating a

On the outermost regions of St. Louis’ premier Italian neighborhood, The Hill, sits Volpi Foods, Inc., America’s oldest and most prestigious manufacturer of authentic

Italian meat products. Most notable for their salami, Volpi also manufactures prosciutto and other specialty Italian meats.

Since 1902, the company has slowly matured from a one-man local business into a third-generation global operation, and as innovation led to new products, Volpi outgrew its forecasting process.

“Many retailers have taken interest in our products and we have been able to grow the number of SKUs, as well as the number of customers, on a pretty regular basis,” explained Adisa Kalkan, marketing associate. “We introduced new flavors and packaging, and we also began to introduce products internationally in Canada, Korea and Latin America. We needed a forecasting system that could handle more complexity in the supply chain.”

Volpi chose Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Requirements Planning to handle their growing manufacturing needs. Kalkan said, “Since we’ve implemented Demand Solutions Forecast

Hand-Crafted Forecasting

Volpi

Kalkan said, “Since we’ve implemented Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Requirements Planning, our service levels have increased significantly. They used to be around 80 percent, but now that we have better control of inventory on hand as well as calculated forecast needs, we are able to more accurately fulfill customer orders. Our service levels have risen to 98 percent.” The high fulfillment rate presents Volpi with a strong advantage over their competitors.

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forecast that was only good for a month. Considering the amount of product we forecast for is very low, we should not have been spending so much time.”

The Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Demand Solutions Requirements Planning implementation took about two months, and once it was finished, Volpi was ready to reap the benefits. They were able to reduce the number of people that work on the forecast from as many as eight people down to as few as two.

Kalkan believes Demand Solutions has allowed her company to reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the guessing portion for future demand, saving time in planning, production and improving their bottom line.

“Our improved fill rates prevent lost sales and our improved turn rate prevents expired inventory and wasted capital,” said Kalkan. “We are now able to more quickly apply future changes due to market conditions, trends, material costs, and promotions as well.”

The Hill

Nestled in a quiet area in southern St. Louis lies an Italian neighborhood known for bocce ball and good food. “The Hill,” once called Fairmount Heights, is where Italian immigrants from Lombardy settled in the early 1900s. The neighborhood was also home to many German and Irish immigrants who worked in the area’s clay mines. Today, the famous Italian neighborhood features some of St. Louis’ finest Italian restaurants, from gourmet to home-style bakeries.

If the hill is known for anything other than its food, it’s the neighborhood ties to two famous baseball players who, coincidentally, grew up just a few doors down from one another. Joe Garagiola and Yogi Berra were childhood friends. Garagiola is a former catcher who later became an announcer and television host, popular for his colorful personality. He was well known for being one of the regular panelists of The Today Show on NBC for many years. Berra, a historic New York Yankee, was one of only four players to be named the American League M.V.P. three times and one of only six managers to lead both American and National League teams to the World Series. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

Volpi

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GoldCity Shoe

Forecasting demand for a single item using a spreadsheet is an undertaking in and of itself, but when the item in question is footwear, each one of those items must be forecasted not

only by style, but by size and color. Using Excel to forecast such intricacies for nearly seven million pairs of shoes each year was too much for spreadsheets to handle at GoldCity Shoe in Thailand.

The 57-year-old company sells upwards of $25 million a year not only in Thailand, but also across Europe and North America. With more than 2,000 employees, GoldCity Shoe operates three factories in Thailand, which produce made-to-stock items for the domestic market under its own brand as well as made-to-order items for private labels and OEM exports of products such as camp boots and snow boots to Europe and North America. The company also resells shoes from other manufacturers.

“In Thailand, we operate under many strategies when it comes to planning and forecasting, such as seasonal demand and international demand,” said Mr. Surasak Jinapun, managing director at GoldCity Shoe. GoldCity purchased Demand Solutions

Thailand’sGoldCity ShoeKicks the Spreadsheet Habit

Forecast Management in August of 2010 and the first phase of implementation was live within four months.

Before implementing Demand Solutions Forecast Management, GoldCity was using spreadsheets to predict demand for 4,000 SKUs for the entire operation. The complexity and inaccuracy of using spreadsheets was multiplied by the fact that most of the brands were manufactured in several styles and each style then came in three or more colors.

“The implementation of Demand Solutions Forecast Management has enabled us to accurately predict our demand across the various markets for each season while reducing risk and improving the overall efficiency of our business planning process,” said Surasak.

To keep track of projected sales, the forecast planner worked with a sales team of ten people and each sales person used Excel and OLAP data from the company’s ERP system to analyze product groups and develop forecasts.

GoldCity Shoe

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The company supplemented projections with monthly histories from the previous year, including information on sales promotions and price increases that may have affected sales. That information was pulled together into a single forecast which was sent to the supply chain manager who would run the color-size ratio to break the forecasted number down to the SKU level for the next month. The results were sent back to the ERP system for the MPS process.

“That took a very long time,” said Surasak, “so we decided to bring in Demand Solutions.” GoldCity implemented the first phase of Forecast Management for Student Canvas Shoes in November 2010 and then added Requirements Planning in December 2010.

Ian Kaw, director of field operations for Demand Solutions Asia who worked on the project, said “In footwear, style-color-size makes the forecasting process all the more complicated when compared to flat finished goods.”

That was more than GoldCity could do with spreadsheets alone.

“We could only focus on group and size. For example, item number 112 comes in three colors, and each color has 25 sizes, which means 75 SKUs for style number 112. We could do forecasting for number 112 by style only,” explained Surasak.

“With Excel, the company could plan on a high level, the style, but now with Demand Solutions they can develop the forecast down to the color and size.” GoldCity now uses Demand Solutions to forecast at the style level, then uses the software’s Scaling feature to ‘prorate’ these forecasts down to the color and style level.

Surasak believes that Demand Solutions will prove especially valuable during the volatile economic conditions which he expects to continue not only in Thailand, but worldwide. Rubber prices have been rising as the Chinese automobile industry expands, and the pressure on oil prices due to uncertainties of supply from the Middle East continues. The combination of these factors will have an adverse effect on shoe prices and sales volumes worldwide.

“We are learning every day the power and deep functionality of the Demand Solutions product,” added Surasak. “Because our demand is irregular and we conduct numerous sales promotions, the manual adjustment feature of the Demand Solutions product allows our planners to predict a more accurate sales demand projection.”

“The implementation of Demand Solutions Forecast Management has enabled us to accurately predict our demand across the various markets for each season while reducing risk and improving the overall efficiency of our business planning process,” said Surasak.

GoldCity Shoe

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Gold City Shoe

The forecasters still do some manual adjusting, but they rely entirely on Demand Solutions Forecast Management to apply the baseline curves for replenishment.

“Planning is much easier now and we are running at least two kinds of forecasts — one for supply chain managers and another for salesmen who use the data with their clients. I foresee that these systems will help us make better business decisions,” said Surasak.

While still in the learning phase, GoldCity is planning at the country-wide level. Once they have the historical data prepared, they plan to forecast at the regional level as well. This will allow them to take into account such variations as the different weather patterns — tropical in the south and at times cooler in the mountainous north — that are experienced in the longitudinally-diverse country.

GoldCity Shoe was able to reap substantial benefits from their implementation of two Demand Solutions products.

Demand Solutions Forecast Management:• Before implementing Demand

Solutions Forecast Management, GoldCity could only forecast 5 percent of their total SKUs. Now they can forecast all of them.

• With this capability: • Sales volume increased • They are able to set the right

direction from a management and monitoring perspective

• Reduced unnecessary safety stock by 8 percent, which equates to about 10 Million Thai Bath (USD 1 Million)

• Improved forecast accuracy for specific SKUs ranging from 10 percent, up to 50 percent

• The sales force can use this forecast to remind and recheck, by comparing forecast versus actual per customer

• The Marketing Manager can analyze Class A Customers more precisely

Demand Solutions Requirements Planning:• Reduced effect of under-stock of

new SKUs • Reduced effect of over-stock from

unsuccessful launch of new SKUs

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Frank Sinatra represents musical taste at its finest — sophisticated, practiced and polished to perfection by years of experience. Old Blue Eyes is in a league of his own. Complete class. That’s Frank. Elvis Presley, on the other hand, is on the opposite end of the spectrum. For his time, he was the cutting edge. Pushing the boundaries was

his specialty, boldly going where no singing hip swinger had gone before.

DSX : Taking Care of Business…My WayIt sounds like a collaboration between Elvis and Frank Sinatra. Well, if

Sinatra represented a quarter of a century of refined supply chain expertise and functionality, and Elvis were cutting edge technology — it would be. The

enterprise version of Demand Solutions popular supply chain planning software, DSX, is the culmination of two worlds — years of refined functionality built on cutting edge technology.

Demand Solutions sets itself apart with its customer-driven method of product enhancement, incorporating specific customer requirements into the base product. Based on this

same customer-centric philosophy, Demand Solutions released DSX, which takes a quarter of a century of supply chain knowledge from people who actually use it and streamlines every process that users have loved.

Manage Your Data the Way You Want — In Just Three Clicks

Progressing from warehouse manager to the head of inventory planning at True Value Company where he managed tens of thousands of items and 50 planners, Demand Solutions President Bill Harrison knows how important it is for customers to be able to act on information, not just view it. Harrison’s experience at True Value Company was the basis for the DSX “three clicks away from your solution” concept. Harrison and the DSX architects designed the entire DSX product platform around a dashboard or control tower concept to create the DSX Nexus, a visual dashboard display of all of a supply chain’s critical data, to let users create dashboards for important KPIs they are responsible for.

DSX

“The idea behind the DSX Nexus is that a DSX user with his or her own workspace defined, can immediately pinpoint a problem, easily drill down into the data, and address the problem all in just three clicks,” said Bill Harrison, president of Demand Solutions.

DSX — The Next Generation in Supply Chain Planning

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“The idea behind the DSX Nexus is that a DSX user with his or her own workspace defined, can immediately pinpoint a problem, easily drill down into the data, and address the problem all in just three clicks,” said Bill Harrison, president of Demand Solutions.

The DSX Nexus dashboard allows users to click through to a personalized workspace for each exception to specifically manage the data directly from the dashboard. Forget the rigidity that accompanies most software tools. Every individual user can view data and manage data however he or she wants while the familiar look and feel of the Microsoft Office software enables intuitive navigation.

No two customers run their supply chain the same way, so no two customers should be forced to work with their data in the same way. These user configured dashboards allow users to prioritize their workload and see which exceptions require the most immediate attention. Managers will know exactly what their most important tasks for the day will be as soon as they log in.

DSX was engineered to give users an almost infinite number of ways to view and access the data they need to do their jobs. “With DSX it will be a relatively simple exercise to add new data streams and product/customer attributes so we can adjust demand planning processes to fit changing business needs,” said Kolie Lintvelt, national administration manager at The Ceres Beverage Company, one of the largest fruit packaging operations in the world and South Africa’s leading fruit juice company.

DSX

“With DSX it will be a relatively simple exercise to add new data streams and product/customer attributes so we can adjust demand planning processes to fit changing business needs,” said Kolie Lintvelt, national administration manager at The Ceres Beverage Company, one of the largest fruit packaging operations in the world and South Africa’s leading fruit juice company.

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“DSX is quite user friendly. The way the panels of data can be configured is a real time saver for us. Adding/removing data streams to the spreadsheet panel couldn’t be any easier. We primarily use the Product Aggregation program to view rolled up data and to drill down several layers to get the information that we need. We use this functionality for both product and customer perspectives.”

— Ed Brown, Director of Demand Planning, Case Logic, Inc. A division of Thule Company

“We have been using Demand Solutions to successfully manage our inventory since 2004. While we have had consistently good results with Demand Solutions for supply chain planning, DSX really improves our ability to manage low volume items to make sure we have the right inventory in place when we need it.”

— Tom Benning, Supply Chain Management Director, Steinhafels Inc.

“Our systems strategy has evolved and it became evident that it was necessary to update the Demand Solutions technology to enable us to communicate more easily with, for example, our Business Warehouse. We also required a more "real time" look at our demand plans and more accurate weekly forecasting.”

— Kolie Lintvelt, National Administration Manager, The Ceres Beverage Company

RangesAn integral part of the DSX functionality is based on the concept of user-defined

ranges. Each range, which can be created by planners or administrators, is a subset of the customer’s data. Ranges allow planners to focus on exactly the data they need to manage forecasts and inventory based on any set of criteria within DSX.

One planner might want to view all items going to Home Depot or Walmart and have KPIs set up around customer satisfaction, while another planner might view ranges based on exceptions such as on-hand inventory limits or items about to stock-out. They can then set a shortcut to that data set (or multiple data sets) directly on the dashboard. If part of a data set needs to be updated, a planner can easily update it from the dashboard and see other related data views update simultaneously.

“After exhaustive research and benchmark comparison, we selected DSX as we found it to be one of the most complete solutions in the market that would satisfy the forecasting and replenishment needs that our company’s growth demands at a great value,” said Alejandro Peschard, Supply Chain Manager, GNC México.

Easy on the ITDSX continues the Demand Solutions tradition of giving users a powerful

planning tool without a large IT footprint. Users can configure their own workspaces, add periodic data, and build dashboards without the help of the IT department. “It was important to select an architecture that would fit with our customers’ overall IT strategies and allow for easy system administration, while still providing users with a familiar, easy-to-use interface,” said Harrison. “Microsoft’s technology stack turned out to be the perfect solution.”

Building on the Microsoft technology platform enables businesses with DSX to set up role-based security, take advantage of SQL reporting services, and automatically update the version of the software they are running. DSX allows for a truly global deployment without heavy IT involvement. “Deciding on Demand Solutions DSX technology was easy, as it fits with our systems strategy and the user interface is familiar to our many Microsoft Office users,” said Ceres’ Lintvelt.

Having a powerful tool which users can manage themselves means more time acting on data and less time sifting through it. DSX allows companies to be scalable without having to hire more resources — one planner can manage more in less time, and making current employees become more productive means a better bottom-line.

Forecast the Way You WantJust as no two items have the same sales pattern, the approach to forecasting

doesn’t have to be the same either. DSX allows its users to forecast in weeks, months, and quarters for different SKUs and then view all of the data on those individual SKUs in different ways at the same time on the same screen. This allows a planner to see what their forecast will look like in weeks compared to months on the same screen for a single product. Streamlined item aggregation tools allow users to roll up multiple items — or customers — into different data views. Multiple views of the same data allow managers to make better planning decisions.

DSX

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Fortunately the American subsidiary of Hagen was already successfully using Demand Solutions Forecast Management. For data collection, the company uses the Tecsys Elite Series supply chain management tool in both North America and Europe.

In 2008, Hagen France decided to implement Forecast Management from Demand Solutions for its French operations. The process took a mere 30 days with support from Demand Solutions local sales consultant and the Hagen IT manager in France, Christophe Gillet-Legrand.

After two cycles of forecasting, the processes were thoroughly validated, said Bordere. Chuck Ruhl, the company’s vice president of operations in North America, provided training.

“Our implementation of Demand Solutions Forecast Management resulted in a 70 percent improvement in service levels,” said Bordere. “I can do the forecast with one monthly update, rather than trying to assemble all the relevant data before each new order of supplies. Our customers appreciate the high fulfillment levels and we can achieve this with fewer emergency shipments from suppliers or from our sister companies in Europe and North America.”

Hagen uses Demand Solutions Forecast Management to run a monthly update of its forecasts with minimal manual intervention.

Rolf C. Hagen, Inc., an international pet food and products company headquartered in Montreal, faced supply chain issues at its French location. The French subsidiary was using Excel

to forecast demand for its pet supplies — from food to bird cages and resources for aquariums and ponds — in the European market.

The spreadsheet alone didn’t provide information about sales trends or seasonally adjusted demand, nor did it offer safety time or safety stock figures, and it didn’t integrate with the company’s corporate-wide supply chain software. Purchase Manager Damien Bordere, running the company’s French forecasts as a one-man operation, knew he needed a better system.

Hagen Finds New Breed of Success

“Our implementation of Demand Solutions Forecast Management resulted in a 70 percent improvement in service levels,” said Bordere. “I can do the forecast with one monthly update, rather than trying to assemble all the relevant data before each new order of supplies.”

Hagen

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Hagen

“The best way to forecast is to use detailed monthly sales figures for the last two years and add in a growth factor.” When the company used Excel, it didn’t analyze sales month by month.

Bordere further elaborated on his goals in using Forecast Management by saying, “With Demand Solutions our target was to fix the supply and move closer to the sales activity. We reached the target and improved the quality of service we provide to our customers. Now our customers are more confident in us, and to me, that is the key point. We know we have to expect some customer turnover, but by using Demand Solutions we know we have the stock level to meet customer demand, often before the customer order arrives.”

“I do some modifications in a few items where we have specific activity,” explained Bordere. “After that, the software refreshes all the forecasts. The great value of this software is that it generates forecasts which include growth factors in our sales activity. This is the biggest value of the Demand Solutions planning software for us, because it is not easy to consider the growth factor in our sales. We change about 20 percent of our catalog every year and some items have a very short lifecycle. We try to be dynamic, so we propose many new items and new ideas in France as part of our company’s competitive strategy.”

Tecsys links directly to Demand Solutions for software-to-software communication, he said.

The pet supply business is highly competitive in both Europe and North America, he added.

With a supply chain stretching to China, Bordere has to plan six to eight months in advance. The French operation receives about 600 containers a year, and it is up to Bordere to match demand with the company’s capability to store and process containers.

“Many of our suppliers are in the Far East (China, Japan, Malaysia) and some are in South Africa or North America. Only a few are located in Europe, and those are easy to arrange,” explained Bordere.

That’s good, because some items in the company’s catalog, such as pond products, enjoy excellent sales in the first six months of the year, but by June the demand drops sharply.

“For pond products, 80 percent of the sales come in the first six months of the year. If I use a large sale number for the whole year, it will not be accurate,” said Bordere.

DS Magazine 17

5.11, Inc. creates tactical apparel that enhances the safety, accuracy, speed and performance of law enforcement, military, EMS and firefighting professionals. From boots to

backpacks, 5.11 has the gear to outfit a police officer, firefighter, first responder or soldier from head to toe. Until November of 2010, 5.11 was using spreadsheets consisting of two Excel workbooks carrying several sheets each to create forecasts once a month for their business.

Unlike typical apparel wholesalers such as winter sportswear companies who book their outerwear almost a year in advance, 5.11 does not have pre-booked orders for its business. “We have to

predict and react to large state and government orders in the blink of an

eye all the while maintaining our normal daily business,” explained

Paul Kocher, senior manager of inventory management.

5.11 TacticalTactical Forecasting

Even in recent economic times, 5.11 has experienced explosive growth — more than 20 percent year over year in various products and categories — making it very difficult to forecast. Adding to the complications, they had disparate systems complicating their ability to update, execute and scenario plan. Ultimately, there was no strong forecasting and planning foundation from which to build an effective sales and operations planning process.

“There were a few things that really drew us to Demand Solutions. One was the fact that it met or exceeded all of our functional requirements but remained cost efficient,” said Kocher. “Also, it was a strong forecasting and planning solution that was quick and easy to implement. We really liked the availability of more than 20 formulas for forecasting and it had the ability to integrate with our Apparel Business Systems (ABS) ERP.”

Through implementing Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Demand Solutions Requirements Planning in concert with other improvements throughout the supply chain,

5.11 Tactical

“With better forecasting, we can see out-of-stocks earlier and be preventative versus reactive. This has helped us continue our 20 percent growth trend year over year,” said Kocher.

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5.11 saw service levels rise from 86 percent to 95 percent over the past year. “We’ve also seen improvements in our ability to execute, scenario plan and communicate plans throughout the organization. We are working to utilize Demand Solutions safety time capability with an eye toward lowering inventory without stunting our fill rate improvement gains,” said Kocher.

5.11 has also seen an improvement in the length of time it takes to develop a forecast. Kocher said the former process could take three to four days, and they created monthly forecasts, whereas now more time is spent on analytics rather than building the forecast. The company has seen similar results with Demand Solutions Requirements Planning. Kocher recalled,

“It used to take a minimum of five days to create a plan. Now Demand Solutions Requirements Planning does this instantly, and we spend three days on analysis rather than keying in plans by hand.”

Having more accurate forecasts and replenishment plans helps 5.11 to better manage their 150 day average lead times for imported goods from 40 plus factories. It has also helped improve the bottom line. “With better forecasting, we can see out of stocks earlier and be preventative versus reactive. This has helped us continue our 20 percent growth trend year over year,” said Kocher. He also said Demand Solutions has allowed 5.11 to react more quickly to changing market conditions.

“With Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Requirements Planning, we can better negotiate inventory problems because we have the tools to see them and the time to commit to analysis, enabling us to recognize and begin solving them. Our process is faster, more standard, and we are

able to improve knowledge sharing across different departments.”

5.11 was able to improve its competitive position through the use of Demand Solutions as well. The improved forecasting and replenishment systems allow the sales

team to focus on selling the product instead of spending time answering fill

rate and backorder questions. Customer relations have also improved. “We can

have a direct dialog about forecasts now, because we can easily build, analyze, collaborate, and improve by using Demand Solutions. Net, Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Requirements Planning allow us to spend time predicting the market’s direction, communicating future moves across the supply chain and managing our business.”

DS Magazine 19

Friendly’s Ice Cream Corporation has delighted consumers with rich, high quality ice cream in every imaginable size, shape and flavor for the past 75 years. It’s only fitting

that a company with such a rich heritage should use one of the most time-tested forecasting software tools on the market.

Friendly’s — which markets a rainbow of products through its chain of 500 restaurants concentrated in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S., as well as through thousands of retail stores across the country — uses Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Demand Solutions Requirements Planning to plan their finished goods and raw materials for their manufacturing facility in Wilbraham, Mass.

Though it’s been 15 years since they first implemented Demand Solutions, Kevin Wright, production planning manager, still recalls the intense time and effort it took to create a forecast with their previous plain vanilla system.

“There were at least seven people involved in the forecasting and planning group. Marketing, Sales and Forecasting worked on the front end of the process and Planning, Manufacturing and Purchasing worked on the back end. It took an average of 40 hours each month to create and add the new forecast to the system,” said Wright. “And we only did one annual forecast, with monthly updates based on the last year’s sales history.”

Friendly’s former system was rigid with little room for adjusting the weekly or daily flow, and there was no statistical feedback analysis. When they began to migrate away from their old mainframe MRP system to a home-grown order management and inventory system,

they needed a supply chain tool that could handle the complexity of their forecasting and planning logic. The new forecasting tool had to be more sophisticated than their former process, which consisted of manually entering in the forecast from a spreadsheet.

“It took nearly eight hours to do one MRP run per week. Getting information into or out of the old system was very difficult. Whichever technology we chose needed to be faster and easier to use,” said Wright.

Friendly’s master plan was to eventually develop their own forecasting tool for their new order management and inventory system, and Demand Solutions only came into the discussion as a temporary fix until that could happen.

“Price and simplicity of use were the two key factors in choosing Demand Solutions as an intermediate supply chain planning solution over other products,” explained Wright. “Clearly it out-performed our expectations, since it is 15 years later and we’re still using it with great success.”

Where it took seven people nearly 40 hours per week to create a forecast, it now takes one person minutes to update the forecast, and just a few productive hours each month to review and manage their forecasts and plans by exception. Friendly’s is able to quickly meet seasonal spikes when orders may come in with as little as one day’s notice, impressing customers with the speed of their order fulfillment during peak sales periods. “We can run Demand Solutions Requirements Planning within ten minutes, review any customer shortages and adjust,” said Wright. The cherry on top, so to speak, was resulting customer service levels in the high nineties.

The Real ScoopHow Friendly’s Ice Cream Corporation Became a 15-Year Demand Solutions Customer

Friendly’s

“Price and simplicity of use were the two key factors in choosing Demand Solutions as an intermediate supply chain planning solution over other products,” explained Wright. “Clearly it out-performed our expectations, since it is 15 years later and we’re still using it with great success.”

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Summer Infant is a trusted manufacturer of innovative, smart and essential baby products based in Rhode Island. Just like every baby grows up and suffers through the awkward teenager stage in the process, Summer Infant discovered that with exponential growth comes growing pains, especially within operations and the supply chain.

When a company like Summer Infant grows quickly, sometimes the old forecasting process simply can’t keep up. One of the biggest forecasting problems

Summer Infant experienced was the amount of time it took to create the forecast and pass the information on to the other departments. To create a forecast, they accumulated point of sale data and sales shipment history into an Excel spreadsheet, then manually entered it into their Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP system. The manual entry took a lot of time, but the maintenance of the forecast in the ERP system took even longer. More time was spent creating and entering the forecast than actually doing the analysis.

“In addition to the time problem, the forecast was based on data from the retailer, not on any statistical evaluation. It was mostly based on gut feel and relied 100 percent on information provided by the retailer,” said Joe Mabardy, director of supply chain. “The challenge with this information is that they are typically optimistic and that can lead to inventory issues when incorrect.”

Mabardy and Chief Operations Officer Jeff Hale had both used Demand Solutions at former companies. Both landed at Summer Infant approximately two years ago and identified a need for a system to manage the company’s forecasting and inventory planning process. “After reviewing some options, we determined that we wanted to go with ‘best of breed’ in this area and recognized that Demand Solutions Forecast Management was the product for that,” said Mabardy. “Our familiarity with the software was another factor in the decision.”

Having been a previous user, Mabardy knew the versatility and the opportunities that were open to him to improve processes using the Demand Solutions software. “We were in desperate need of inventory planning software and the links between the Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Requirements Planning modules were a key decision factor.” In addition, Mabardy said there had been discussions about a longer term solution to Summer Infant’s ERP system, and implementing Demand Solutions gave them the flexibility to continue to use Demand Solutions if they chose a new ERP, given the Demand Solutions Tier One ERP installed base.

“After reviewing some options, we determined that we wanted to go with ‘best of breed’ in this area and recognized that Demand Solutions Forecast Management was the product for that,” said Mabardy. “Our familiarity with the software was another factor in the decision.”

Summer Infant

Summer Infant

DS Magazine 21

Over the last ten years, Summer Infant has grown tremendously due to its innovation in the juvenile products industry, which Mabardy credits to a fantastic product development and sales team. The company has nearly tripled its annual revenue since going public in 2007, reaching $194 Million in 2010. Once a company focused on baby bouncers, Summer Infant is now an industry leader in a number of categories, including nursery monitors, safety gates, swaddling blankets and furniture, to name a few.

“While revenue was exploding, operationally and systematically, we fell behind,” Mabardy explained. “Demand Solutions was the first major systems project that the company took on, and along the way we discovered that most of our data was in multiple places. We had basic information in our ERP system, and not all of it was accurate, but we also had additional information in various spreadsheets in various departments throughout the company.” Mabardy said the Demand Solutions project was the catalyst for consolidating this information, establishing ownership, and cleansing the data — not an easy task, and it caused them to change direction more than once.

“Having said that, I feel confident in saying that in addition to the benefits of all that Demand Solutions brought with it for our forecasting and inventory planning groups, it allowed us to pilot change

management in a real time example. Since our Demand Solutions implementation, we have started several system projects, including a warehouse management system, a new sales order management process, etc.” Mabardy and Summer Infant took what

they learned from their Demand Solutions implementation and applied that to their subsequent projects.

“We also used the Demand Solutions implementation to trailblaze change management within our associates,” Mabardy added. “It showed that we can implement new technology and systems to make their work easier, that there were different and new ways of doing things that did not previously exist at Summer Infant, and that these new tools can be done successfully.”

Once all systems were go, Summer Infant began tracking improvements across the business. One key area of measurement was forecast accuracy. “This is one measure that had always eluded us in the past. Now that we are up and running, we are able to

identify our forecast accuracy and strive for improvement,” said Tom Wojcik, Demand Planning Manager and resident Demand Solutions Superuser. “There is no question that our forecasts have improved significantly since implementing Demand Solutions Forecast Management.”

Although Summer Infant never formally had a system that allowed Mabardy’s team to plan with a hard safety time or safety stock, he said he used to operate on approximately six to eight weeks of safety stock. “With our introduction of Demand Solutions Forecast Management, and Demand Solutions Requirements Planning to manage our planning, we have been able to reduce our safety stock three to four weeks for most of our items.”

Mabardy states that he has seen a 20 percent reduction in inventory since Summer Infant’s implementation of Demand Solutions six months ago. “Although not all of this can be attributed to Demand Solutions, we have still had a significant reduction of inventory, despite a

recent acquisition.” Because Mabardy deals with a

fast-paced retail environment, discontinued, inactive or obsolete inventory presents a constant challenge. “We have been able to reduce our total discontinued/obsolete inventory by 30 percent over the last six months and our forecast improvement has helped the bottom line. Our air freight expense, which was fairly hefty, is trending

to a 50 percent improvement year over year. This is a significant improvement given the rising costs to fly product in from the Orient. We have also lowered our inventory level, which certainly helps cash flow.”

Summer Infant

Mabardy states that he has seen a 20 percent reduction in inventory since Summer Infant’s implementation of Demand Solutions six months ago.

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Of course, the main reason Summer Infant chose Demand Solutions was to reduce the time it took to create a forecast, and Mabardy said one of his greatest improvements is that he can now spend much more time analyzing the forecast, rather than maintaining data and manually entering it into the ERP system.

The Demand Solutions Requirements Planning software has also proven beneficial. “It has helped identify where we need to make changes to our purchase orders out in the future. Given the lead times that we are faced with, we are forced to issue purchase orders far in advance of when we will actually ship the goods to our customers,” Mabardy explained. “When we see changes to the forecast, because it is completely integrated with Demand Solutions Forecast Management software, we can immediately react with our vendors to help minimize our excess inventory. We did not have this kind of visibility prior to implementing Demand Solutions.”

The next step for Mabardy and his team at Summer Infant is to explore the integration of customer projections and point

of sale data into Demand Solutions. “The ability to house multiple forecasts within the database is a huge advantage that we will surely be able to capitalize on in the future.” The ultimate goal is the integration of the supply chain process. The first step along the way was the forecasting process, as it all starts there. Demand Solutions fit the bill to ensure the data driving the rest of the enterprise is as accurate and timely as possible. Mabardy said his team looks forward to the challenges of the constantly changing environment, and he feels strongly that having the right tools in place, like Demand Solutions, will benefit Summer Infant for years to come.

Summer Infant

“We have been able to reduce our total discontinued/obsolete inventory by 30 percent over the last six months and our forecast improvement has helped the bottom line. Our air freight expense, which was fairly hefty, is trending to a 50 percent improvement year over year. This is a significant improvement given the rising costs to fly product in from the Orient. We have also lowered our inventory level, which certainly helps cash flow.”

— Joe Mabardy, director of supply chain at Summer Infant

DS Magazine 23

Inventory Visibility. Most software systems show you a complex amount of data, when what you really need is simplicity. Demand Solutions o�ers a suite of �exible tools that allow companies of all sizes to work the way they want, plan the way they want, and manage their business the way they want. For forecast management, inventory planning, and a range of other key process operations, we’ve got a solution that lets you see the big picture...and the details that matter most to you.

To download our free “Manage What Matters” White Paper visit: http://www.demandsolutions.com/manage-what-matters