Learn how to optimize your supply chain with our white papers.

Winning the Inventory Battle in Consumer Electronics

In the electronics industry, product shelf lives are short and the greatest margin occurs during a successful product launch. But 50% of new product introductions fail to achieve success and almost half of those failures are due to initial misreads of market expectations. Why? This white paper looks at how the battle for profitability turns largely on two key disciplines: accurate demand planning and effective inventory optimization.

Three Critical Components for Private Label Success

Private label manufacturing has evolved into a demanding discipline characterized by high service levels, thin margins, large SKU counts, and little room for error. This supply chain white paper shows how mid-sized manufacturers can grow robustly year over year if they master the art of customer collaboration and the science of demand planning, inventory optimization and production planning.

7 Methods that Improve Forecasting Accuracy

Smart supply chain planners use multiple forecasting methods tuned to perform well at different phases of the product life cycle. The key is to pick the most effective and flexible models, blend their best features, and shift between them as needed to keep forecast accuracy at its peak. This white paper looks at seven methods that have produced superior results for Logility’s many clients in a variety of industries and market conditions around the world.

5 Steps to Ensure Collaborative VMI Success

Today, we see the traditional data intensive VMI process merging with the best of Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) to form Collaborative VMI, a new process which shares more of the benefits across trading partners. This white paper examines how traditional VMI and CPFR have come together to form a more encompassing process that benefits all involved.

Successful Sales and Operations Planning in 5 Steps

The monthly S&OP meeting is a critically important decision-making activity that sets the overall direction for the company. This supply chain white paper discusses 5 critical steps to ensure a successful planning process that aligns with organizational goals.

6 Keys to Exceeding Expectations with Inventory Optimization Initiatives

This white paper examines the crucial factors you must get right to ensure your inventory optimization projects deliver outstanding results. Learn how to gain critical executive support, understand what pitfalls to avoid and what to expect from an inventory optimization project.

4 Steps to Building a Branded Apparel Competitive Edge

Several key trends—such as increasing dominance of mass merchants, growing focus on private labels and the emergence of agile verticallyintegrated retailers—have pressured branded manufacturers and dramatically reshaped the industry. This white paper presents four steps to achieve improved planning at the store level, a greater ability to react to in-season replenishment signals and a streamlined sales and operations planning process.

The Life Sciences Guide to Exceeding Expectations with Inventory Optimization Initiatives

Good inventory optimization programs have transformed the supply chain performance and competitive position of leading life sciences companies, whose complex world is dominated by extreme service level requirements, multi-tier distribution networks, and a myriad of high- and low-volume SKUs. This white paper explores the six crucial factors life sciences organizations much get right to ensure their inventory optimization initiative succeed.

What Every CFO Should Know About Inventory Optimization

CFOs strongly believe that good supply chain performance is vital to financial success. Studies show that a majority of CFOs believe the supply chain is directly linked to their ability to meet corporate objectives. Given that CFOs have varying levels of experience with inventory optimization (IO), this supply chain white paper provides a few facts that every CFO should know.

Are All Products Created Equal? Utilizing Multiple Forecasting Methods to Increase Forecast Accuracy

Demand planning and forecasting serve as the centralized repository of intelligence for marshalling resources to cost-effectively respond to future demand. In order to ensure optimal demand forecasting, those in distribution-intensive industries must capitalize on using the most appropriate forecasting model and methods that best serve the unique dynamics of their business at a specific moment in time. All products are not created equal–nor are market dynamics static such that one model that fits today's conditions will be equally suitable tomorrow.
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Five Inventory Core Competencies That Can Make or Break Your Competitive Advantage

Slower sales, longer supply chains, SKU proliferation, and higher obsolescence can hamper a company's ability to compete. To combat these and other supply chain challenges, best-in-class companies have turned to inventory optimization. Companies have realized hundreds of millions of dollars in documented savings through smarter inventory reductions without sacrificing sales revenue or missing customer commitments. This supply chain white paper addresses the 5 inventory core competencies you need to understand to stay ahead of the competition and free up working capital.

Aberdeen Integrated Transportation Management

Best-of-Breed vs. ERP: Supply Chain Execution: Best-of-Breed IT Solutions Deliver

This paper provides readers an overview of the current business environment and the criticality of the supply chain given the business challenges of today.
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Best Practices in S&OP: A Benchmark Report

Enterprises in the post millennium era have been severely challenged by a set of irreversible marketplace factors — including shrinking profit lifecycles, demand for personalized solutions, and the rise of the distributed network enterprise — that have transformed the global competitive environment into one with fundamentally more uncertainty and risk, but also one with great opportunity. These pressures have compelled companies to redefine winning business models, processes, and technologies and have catapulted the sales and operations planning process into the single most important tactical process to manage risk and profitability.

Best Practices in Transportation Management: How Companies Are Driving Cost and Service Improvements

Supply chain and transportation executives face intense pressure to deal with transportation rate and capacity challenges, as well as satisfy the increased thirst for transportation information from the rest of the organization. To identify today’s success strategies for transportation management, AberdeenGroup researched the domestic transportation practices of a variety of large and midsize companies. This investigation found that a number of companies have successfully transformed their transportation management operations to drive increased value for their businesses, while keeping cost and capacity issues in check.

Collaborative Transportation Management

Collaborative Transportation Management outlines the new application of collaboration in supply chain execution - Collaborative Transportation Management (CTM). This concept for CTM was presented to the CTM sub-committee at the VICS 2000 Conference and accepted as a working document for the sub-committee to define the emerging standard.
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Demand-Driven Inventory Management Strategies: Challenges and Opportunities for Distribution-Intensive Companies

Companies across a broad spectrum of manufacturing, distribution, and retail segments are striving to be more demand driven. The demand-driven strategy of allowing actual demand to pull inventory through the company and its supply chain seems simple. However for those using traditional supply chain management practices, other corporate strategies – along with some outside forces –make it a challenge to create a truly demand-driven supply and distribution network.

The Demand Management Benchmark Report: Profitably Dominating Your Target Market

More than 85% of all companies that have implemented a program to improve demand management have generated significant improvements in key customer facing performance. This report from the AberdeenGroup recommends that companies take certain actions to ensure they extract maximum value from their demand management initiatives.

Demand Management in Consumer Industries: Technology Strategies for Managing Demand in Today's Dynamic Business Environment

The consumer marketplace is becoming increasingly volatile, fragmented, and dynamic. These changes cry out for a process of dynamically assessing and managing demand. Shrinking product life cycles and an unforgiving marketplace are sharply increasing the costs of demand management errors.

Demand Management in Discrete Industries

Seventy percent (70%) of a total of 260 respondents to Aberdeen's survey on demand management practices in the discrete manufacturing space indicate that they have had a focused demand management program in place. In fact, 31% of companies indicate that they have had a program in place for more than four years. Aberdeen research finds that these companies need to refocus their attention towards order-to-delivery excellence as a driver for demand management rather than just concentrating on demand planning (statistical forecasting). Aspects that companies should focus on include external collaboration, customer level forecasting, and integration with order management.

Energy Cost Impact Brief from Industry Directions: The Energy Cost Factor, Transforming the Supply Chain to Offset Margin Squeeze

One year after the significant spike in energy prices, distribution and  manufacturing companies have had the opportunity to digest the pervasive impact  of high energy costs on their operations and margins. Overall, supply chain  executives remain very concerned about the impact of energy costs, and recognize  that the problem is not an aberration and will not go away on its own any time  soon.

Fuel Your Green Supply Chain: Optimizing Transportation Efficiencies

Supply Chain Sustainability initiatives are rapidly becoming a top priority at many companies as they seek to reduce supply chain costs with a new eco-conscious approach. Since these sustainability initiatives touch all areas of the supply chain, each company must evaluate the impact on costs and revenue growth within their specific global network. Transportation Management Systems offer the opportunity to achieve big savings and efficiency. An improved transportation management process enables companies to go green by reducing fuel consumption and lowering emissions.

Logility Inventory Management Solutions: A Fact Based Analysis

Logility Voyager Solutions is a software suite that provides demand planning, inventory planning and supply planning capabilities needed to manage inventory especially for distribution-centric businesses. A Logility customer base survey conducted by Aberdeen indicates a high degree of technology adoption and above average inventory performance benefits.

Technology Strategies for Inventory Management: How to Convert Inventory from Cost to a Competitive Advantage

This benchmark report from AberdeenGroup will provide insight on how to properly manage inventory to drive revenue and efficiency. With traditional inventory management practices being made obsolete by increasingly more global supply chains, contract manufacturing, more dynamic product lifecycles, and multi-channel distribution, inventory management processes and technologies are being actively re-evaluated by companies today. This report examines the latest technology strategies and practices for managing inventory to gain market share and competitive advantage through superior service and availability.
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Inventory Optimization Technology Strategies for the Chief Supply Chain Officer

According to Aberdeen Group's, "Inventory Optimization Strategies for the Chief Supply Chain Officer", the key to managing the growing complexity of today's supply chains, reducing costs and improving customer service levels is the use of best-of-breed inventory optimization software. Nari Viswanathan, vice president and principal analyst, Aberdeen Group, found that best-in-class companies were five times more likely to use a best-of-breed solution for their multi-echelon inventory optimization initiative.

Logility Voyager Demand Planning Solution: Evaluating the Benefits

Aberdeen recently researched demand management technology trends within consumer industries. This research brief assesses the performance of companies using Logility’s Voyager Demand Management solutions in comparison to the overall pool of benchmark respondents.

Managing A Bountiful Harvest: Blending Long-term Planning with Short-term Scheduling: Constraint Based Planning and Scheduling for Food Manufacturers

This paper examines how food manufacturers successfully plan for seasonal harvests, achieve long-term visibility of future demands and manage near-term production scheduling and execution.
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The Responsive Supply Chain: Managing Market Events in the Consumer Goods Industry

Responding to New Challenges in the Branded Apparel Industry

Branded apparel manufacturers have faced severe pressures from new sources over the last few years, including mass merchants, retail private label brands and agile vertical retailers. Each one threatens to further erode prices and margins, while demanding faster sell-through as well as increased speed and flexibility.

To combat these new threats, branded manufacturers must adopt three core competencies that will help them to better plan assortments at the store level, understand in-season trends, and support in season replenishment and VMI.
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Return on Relationship versus ROI: Relationship Life Cycles and Collaboration, The differences between Product, Customer and Relationship Life Cycles

The 1970s were marked with management theories focused on Product Life Cycles. Companies were organized around how products were conceived, designed, tested, developed, approved, manufactured, sold, distributed and serviced. Theory was turned into practice, and companies finally had a handle on how products entered and exited the marketplace. With the realization that customers made up the "market," the 1980s ushered in a renewed focus on the customer and the focus on Product Life Cycles gave way to Customer Life Cycles.
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Sales and Operations Planning: Integrate with Finance and Improve Revenue

Economic volatility over the past several years has been illustrated by the highly unstable customer demand, raw material, fuel, and commodity prices. Most recently, it has intensified because of the global economic recession that began unfolding a few months ago. Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is the key integrated process that the supply chain organization (specifically the VP of Supply Chain) can leverage to achieve visibility and transformation across the entire organization and the value chain. The following study highlights the result of over 220 companies participating in a survey on S&OP related initiatives. The goal of this study is to compare and contrast the view points of supply chain and finance organizations relating to S&OP processes.

Sales and Operations Planning: A Journey That's Worth The Effort

CGT partners with Logility, Inc. in order to take a look at S&OP in the CG industry.

Sales and Operations Planning: Strategies for Managing Complexity within Global Supply Chains

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is the key integrated process that the supply chain organization can leverage to achieve visibility and transformation across the entire organization and throughout the value chain. This study highlights the results of over 196 companies participating in a survey on S&OP related initiatives. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of respondents indicate that improving top line revenue in 2010 is the top pressure driving attention and resources toward S&OP initiatives.

Secrets of Successful Global Sourcing: A Guide for Brand Owners in Apparel, Home Goods, Consumer Durables, Office Products and General Merchandise Industries

Global sourcing has become routine procedure in some industries, while it is an increasingly important competitive factor in many others. Effective global sourcing is becoming the predominant business imperative in these early years of the 21st century. 
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Service Parts from Aberdeen: The Service Parts Management Update

Responding to shrinking product-based profit margins and pressure to deliver better customer service, companies are increasingly looking for ways to automate and control the flow of service parts to and from asset operators. While companies have traditionally put more emphasis on the planning of production parts, service-oriented companies are beginning to focus on the intelligent planning and management of spares to reduce excess costs, improve service contract compliance, increase customer loyalty, and offer a differentiated value proposition.

The S&OP Benchmark Report: Leveraging S&OP for Competitive Advantage

This report determines the implications of S&OP business practices, application technologies, analytics, and organizational alignment on competitive performance. The success strategies and actions taken to overcome challenges by best-of-breed performers provide a benchmark for comparison and provide the reader with a fact-based case for action.

Supply Chain Digest Research Report: Supply Chain Execution Technology: Supply Chain Execution Technology, Making the Right Decision Between ERP and Best-of-Breed

In the past two years, the market for supply chain execution software applications such as warehouse management and transportation management has been roiled by the increasingly agressive efforts of ERP providers . . .

Supply Chain Digest Research Report: Supply Chain Planning Technology, Making the Right Decision Between ERP and Best-of-Breed

In the past two years, the market for supply chain planning software applications such as demand planning, inventory planning and production scheduling has been roiled by the increasingly aggressive efforets of ERP providers . . .

The Supply Chain Innovator's Technology Footprint: A Benchmark Report on What Companies Want in Their Next-Generation Supply Chain Solution

With globalization of supply and more customer-specific fulfillment mandates, the need for supply chain technology is not abating. However, in analyzing the plans of more than 200 enterprises, it is clear that supply chain executives are seeking new capabilities and technology features for their next-generation supply chain solutions. The classic internally focused, serial processes between supply chain planning and execution activities will become outmoded in the next generation of supply chain implementations. Companies that have yet to prioritize process automation with suppliers or customers or that don’t have a clear game plan for “sense and respond” capabilities that link real-time visibility with supply chain execution and planning should be put on notice.

Transportation Planning and Management for Operational and Bottom-line Benefits: Best-of-Breed TMS Delivers Benefits for SAP Users Now

This paper discusses SAP pursuing further development of its transportation product to close the gap between the basic functionality currently offered and the extended capabilities found in best of breed transportation management sashes (TMS) offered by companies such as Logility.
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