Dyes & specialty chemicals company improves forecast and inventory management

Overcoming crisis with gains

The Corona crisis has dramatically changed the way companies around the world are managing their supply chains. Alongside with supply disruptions and manpower shortages, businesses encounter problems with the effectiveness of their forecasting capabilities during this turbulent period. Demand planners can’t rely on past data and, as previously, confidently use it to predict further development. Unpredictable and substantial short-term demand fluctuations overshadow the picture even more, distorting forecasting abilities and leaving supply chain departments without tools for steering the business. Business-as-usual is no longer an option for the majority of companies and they start looking for more advanced solutions.

Robust scenario analysis is the best solution for this volatile environment

EyeOn has numerous tools that go far beyond traditional history-based forecasting techniques. Our consultants have been working for years with various industries that have experienced diverse business challenges. Companies ask for our support to overcome these issues, advancing their demand planning capability to a whole new level. The level of uncertainty during the corona crisis is almost unprecedented. Our planning experts have no doubts that robust scenario analysis is the best solution for this volatile environment.

Find optimal safety stock levels and improve inventory management performance

One of our customers is a global leader in the area of dyes and specialty chemicals. The Corona wave impacted the company’s supply capabilities as well as demand potential. The traditional forecasting method that they used could not manage this level of turbulence and created a great challenge for the whole supply chain. This triggered their interest in EyeOn’s tools to improve their forecasting and inventory management practices. Our team was able to come up with the right solution in a matter of just a couple of weeks. EyeOn prepared a set of business scenarios for demand planning which incorporated various inputs from the customer as well as our deep understanding of supply chain in the process industry. It included a basic scenario and a range of additional more pessimistic or optimistic predictions based on a comprehensive analytical model. These scenarios were applied by the management as the basis for their planning. Each demand scenario included an inventory management roadmap that clearly explained how stock should be managed in each case. The approach helped to find optimal safety stock levels and improve inventory management performance. Thus, the company was able not only to maintain their forecast accuracy on a high level but also to manage their inventory in the most financially advantageous way.

Establish data-driven decision-making process

However, this was only the first step of the forecasting enhancement process. To help the customer navigate a rapidly changing environment EyeOn created a special planning solution. Anaplan supported by PowerBI served as a main integrated tool and simplified the evaluation of influence of different customers’ demand drivers. The solution combined with specially designed KPI dashboards provided insights regarding the real-time impacts of the Corona crisis and helped to reveal an accurate snapshot of the company’s day-to-day situation. The company was thus enabled to adapt its own scenario planning if the business environment changes. Under EyeOn’s supervision demand planners started to employ these new ways of working and in a couple of months the planning department was fully reinforced with the new powerful solution. Planning became the key function during the crisis period providing valuable demand and supply insight to the management team. As a result, a healthy data-driven decision-making process was established within the company. It helped them to avoid the devastating consequences of the ‘bullwhip effect’ and to keep inventory levels and working capital under control on all stages of their supply chain.

Conclusion

During a crisis, deep insight and understanding of the entire chain are key to handling it properly. EyeOn is equipped with world-class experts, cutting-edge solutions, and in-depth business knowledge. These factors help to quickly identify customer’s needs and to deliver robust solutions rapidly. During the last crisis, it became obvious that commercial survival depends on resilience and adaptability to fluctuations and disruptions. Readiness is everything.

Do you want to enhance your planning capability? We are happy to accompany you on this journey! Contact us now.

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