Lack of visibility, lack of raw materials, lack of coordination: supply chain management often resembles a long list of shortcomings. The results are disrupted processes, inefficiency, internal and external frustration, and exploding costs. Increasing product variety and shorter product lifecycles add to the complexity. Whether it is sales planning, inventory management, production planning or comprehensive S&OP processes, companies today cannot do without specialized AI-based software. This is the only way to achieve operational, collaborative and strategic control of the supply chain.

The Supply Chain Management Challenge

Reliable supply chain management ensures that a company makes the products that sales can actually sell. Production schedules are designed so that buyers can get the materials they need on time. Employees can rely on an optimal data situation. This is essential if inventory managers, sales planners, and production planners are to make reliable decisions under pressure.

The Sales Planning Challenge

How does business strategy affect sales? What potential can be better leveraged? What needs to be considered across departments to improve service levels and delivery? Sales planners must answer these questions every day. However, insufficient information and a lack of connectivity across the enterprise make it difficult for them to make critical decisions in the time and quality required.

The Production Planning Challenge

Machine capacities, raw materials, delivery dates - production planners must consider a multitude of possible combinations and constraints. However, a feasible, cost-optimized production plan can only be created if it takes into account all items, production stages, and dependencies.

The S&OP Process Challenge

In many companies, siloed thinking and the lack of a common database still prevent successful sales and operations planning. An effective S&OP process must overcome silos, coordinate plans from different departments, and establish company-wide collaboration based on a standardized information base.

AI-based, intelligent supply chain management software ensures resilient supply chains. It automates standard processes, aggregates critical information, evaluates it, and derives recommendations for action. This frees supply chain managers from routine tasks. It also sends all relevant information to where it is needed. This provides transparency and control over all processes. The software uses intelligent algorithms to generate reliable forecasts.

For inventory management, this means being able to accurately predict future sales, identify seasonal influences early, and dynamically optimize safety stock levels. For sales planning, the software strengthens collaboration between management, sales, marketing, and production. It provides a cross-departmental database for meaningful business forecasting. And it allows production planners to dynamically calculate batch sizes. This helps them allocate the desired market demand across all stages of production so that delivery dates are always met.

Companies can also use AI-based software to integrate strategic decisions into operational processes as part of their S&OP process. This means that they can transparently map various planning information and the impact of business decisions on operational processes in advance. The result is plans that can be implemented across departments.