Across industries, supply chain leaders will be replacing, upgrading, or expanding the capabilities of their advanced supply chain planning systems (APS) in the coming years to achieve their digital transformation goals and boost performance.
Implementing advanced supply chain planning systems requires a thoughtful and systematic approach that ensures alignment with business objectives, seamless integration with planning processes, a robust and integrated functional solution across the IT landscape, and smooth adoption by the organization.
In this blog, we dive deeper into what drives this steady increase in the implementation of advanced planning systems’ capabilities. On top of that, we also share the 5-phase digital transformation framework towards creating sustainable value from your next APS implementation.
Global disruptions as a new norm
Market dynamics and market complexity are at an all-time high. You can hardly speak of impactful supply chain events anymore, as global disruptions are no longer the exception, but the new norm. Many companies have experienced in recent years that they lack the digital planning capabilities to meet their needs for supply chain visibility, planning agility, scenario planning, and speed of decision-making.
Companies are increasingly looking for ways to improve the efficiency of their planning process, automate repetitive planning tasks, and optimize network capacity and inventory. Building on a solid operating model, advanced supply chain planning tools provide the technical capabilities to achieve these goals.
The pace of technological advancement and tool stack evolution (e.g., the retirement of SAP APO) is forcing companies to rethink their future digital strategy. There are many options to choose from, and companies need to decide which APS strategy best fits their longer-term needs and priorities.
Advanced supply chain planning systems implementation: focus on business and design
While the benefits of advanced planning systems’ capabilities are clear, the path to realization is not always that clearly defined.
In our experience, companies fail to realize the full value of an implementation because they focus too much on the technical solution and not enough on business readiness, functional and applied design expertise, and a robust APS capability and support model. In addition, an advanced supply chain planning systems implementation requires focus, and investment in creating the optimal mix of process excellence, They start their advanced planning system digital transformation with a focused (re)definition of the supply chain operating model, which is then translated into a well-standardized process and organizational blueprint prior to vendor selection.
1. Transformation plan & blueprint
They start their advanced planning system digital transformation with a focused (re)definition of the supply chain operating model, which is then translated into a well-standardized process and organizational blueprint prior to vendor selection.
2. Tool selection
They ensure that user requirements are clearly defined and unambiguous, and they identify unique and high-value use cases that the tool should support as input to the vendor selection process. On top of that, they conduct a proof of concept or proof of value to assess the functional capabilities, intuitiveness, and performance of the solution(s) before making a final tool selection decision.
3. Advanced planning systems readiness assessment
They evaluate and make targeted investments in the supporting capabilities that will determine the system’s robustness and level of adoption. Specifically, they perform an early assessment of master data maturity and alignment of master data processes, governance, and support tools.
Next, they make sure to assess and upgrade planner skills and enable timely change engagement. Finally, they define upfront what the future advanced planning system support model will look like and anticipate the required organizational changes.
4. Advanced planning system design & solution development
They ensure early vendor involvement in the functional design and solution design efforts. This is to gain a solid understanding of the functional coverage supported out-of-the-box versus the required customization (also considering the solution development roadmap). They apply an agile approach to configuration development with a good balance between core functionality, usability/user engagement, and performance.
They make well-balanced decisions on the phasing of complexity, allowing for the adoption of baseline planning capabilities before introducing more advanced functionality.
5. Go live, operationalization, and continuous improvement
They allow for sufficient time during hypercare to transfer knowledge and skills from the central project team to local owners. A clear ownership and governance model for the different categories of support and continuous improvement (integration, performance, master data, functional enhancements) is in place.
On top of that, they have dedicated specialist roles in place with clear ownership and resource allocation, because over time, an SME or key user model is not sufficient to drive structural standardization and continuous improvement of the solution.
Ready to drive sustainable value from your next advanced supply chain planning system implementation?
Our extensive implementation experience has led to the creation of a proven framework that will help you become an advanced supply chain planning system champion and realize sustainable value.
Our guide is your essential ingredient for APS success, helping you discover:
- The essential role of APS in your digital transformation
- The position of APS in your tooling landscape
- The 5 key phases of a successful APS implementation
- A proven checklist for each phase to get started immediately
In this guide, we provide an end-to-end APS digital transformation framework and best-practice experiences to help you increase your chances of success and realize sustainable value. Download it here.
