Collaborative Planning with Suppliers and Customers

The Case for Collaborative Planning with Suppliers and Customers

Higher service, lower inventory, shorter lead times, increased flexibility, increased production productivity, and more focus on the customer’s customer; these benefits are real for those companies who take an aggressive and strategic view toward not just implementing collaborative processes but making it part of the way they interact with all trading partners.

Approach

For those of you who are at a point where you need to build collaborative processes from scratch; assess and improve your current collaborative process; or take your current process maturity to the next level, SCE provides coaching configured to the level of support you need.

The Supply Chain Excellence approach utilizes a train / apply / review technique integrating formal instruction, guided practice, and independent “homework” assignments. The project work follows the 13 step discipline as detailed in Chapter 11 of the book, leverages the Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment standard, and is summarized in these major phases:

Phase 0   Build Organizational Support
Phase 1   Define the Project Scope
Phase 2   Complete Detailed Process Design
Phase 3   Conduct Pilot Cycle 1
Phase 4   Conduct Pilot Cycle 2
Phase 5   Develop Implementation Plan and Roll Out Process

Typical Project Deliverables

Typical project deliverables are:

  1. Executive Briefing and Go / No Go Decision
  2. Project Charter and Pilot Scope
  3. Leading Practice Assessment
  4. Collaboration Policy
  5. Collaboration Process Flows
  6. Collaboration Spreadsheet including Point of Sale, Trading Partner Forecasts, Capacity, Inventory, and Promotional plans
  7. Pilot Plans
  8. Technology Requirements
  9. Collaboration Pilot Calendar
  10. Implementation and Roll Out Plan

Company Resource Commitment

Resources that should be provided are:

  1. Executive sponsor
  2. Steering team – champions of implementation
  3. Project leader
  4. Project team – process and content experts

Typical Project Schedule

Month 1
Build Organizational Support
Planning and Organizing

Month 2
Detailed Process Design

Months 3 and 4
Pilot Cycle 1
Pilot Cycle 2

Months 4 to 12
Implementation Planning and Process Roll Out

More Information

Each supply chain collaboration project is configured using a Statement of Work (SOW); if you are interested in more information about how this service may support your company, please contact Peter directly.