TThe client is a global leader in eye and vision care products such as intraocular lenses as well as surgical products, equipment, and solutions. They are present in over a hundred countries.
Frequent mergers and acquisitions had led to a diversified IT system landscape. There were many instances of lost demand and excess inventory across supply chain nodes including affiliates, distribution centers, and manufacturing plants. Infosys implemented SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and transformed the business by migrating the entire planning process to a single platform.
Key Challenges
- Lack of end-to-end supply chain visibility led to stock-outs of products in short supply
- Inventory obsolescence or write-offs occurred frequently across warehouses due to product shelf life limitations
- Inaccurate capacity planning posed production challenges
- Manual and error-prone distribution planning processes led to sub-optimal supply for priority orders
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The Solution
Implementation and enhancement of SAP IBP solution for supply planning
Infosys implemented SAP IBP for two of the client’s business units, covering 50 affiliates across 4 geographies. The intent was to create a single global cloud-based solution for the entire supply planning process. This included demand planning, supply planning, and integration with execution systems – SAP ECC and legacy. The platform was further enhanced to address specific challenges faced by each business unit. For instance, for the surgical business unit, several business-specific requirements were identified and implemented as part of the Surgical Push Deployment Project.
- A combination of unconstrained and constrained supply planning (using heuristics and optimizer engines) ensured effective distribution planning
- Customized controls on safety stock prevented stock-outs for supply-constrained products
- Used multi-level shelf-life planning for deployment based on unusable and expiring inventory batches across countries and distribution centers
- Leveraged the ‘demand categorization’ functionality to prioritize backorders over future sales orders while determining the quantity to be deployed
- Integrated deployment signals with the execution system to trigger outbound shipments from the manufacturing plants or main distribution centers to different shipping points
Benefits
Improved inventory management and reduced obsolescence by automating shelf-life management
Enabled envisioning and meeting future customer demand by effectively managing supply and capacity considerations
Ensured effective allocation of inventory across the supply chain based on prioritization of customer orders
Improved control on stock deployment, thereby reducing stock-outs for supply-constrained products
Reduced manual effort by integrating planning results with execution systems
