Integrated Tactical Planning

CHAPTER 8Time to Releasing Value: A Case Study in Speed to Results

There are a number of case studies we can draw on, but we have decided that one in particular, for the sake of company confidentiality, Company X, is the one that had it all. At the time of engaging with Company X, the company had already dubbed itself the “the perfect storm,” so that gives you an indication of what it was going through in the early stages.

Background

The company operates in a perishable goods FMCG environment and at the time had about 1,700 employees. It operated in six major categories, across four channels, plus export, and with eight manufacturing sites. They had a peak period which they called OND (October, November, December), and on average during the year, they processed about 50,000 orders a month.

The symptoms the company conveyed to us before we engaged with it was that customer service and delivery performance was down, inventory was up, costs were up, and the monthly S&OP (Integrated Business Planning) process just was not working—it had literally become paralyzed by analysis and backward‐looking performance analysis.

It was now January, and the seasonal peak, which was now being called the OND crunch, was over. The focus was on making the ERP system work properly. Installation was only finished the October prior, and there was a collective wisdom gathering momentum that it was the new ERP system causing all the problems. Part of the issue was indeed that this implementation was ...