Improving Supply Chain Performance Through An Integrated Planning Concept

Inhaltsangabe:Problem statement: In recent years enterprises are facing a dramatic change in the way that they do business. Rapid advances in technology and increasing regulatory freedom have changed the rules and nature of competition. Enterprises are now competing globally and traditional barriers between industries are breaking down. To cope with these changes and achieve superior performance, business leaders are moving towards new business paradigms that allow their companies to work more closely with their traditional and new business partners to adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace. This improved integration is the very essence of Supply Chain Management. Supply chain leaders are reconsidering the linkages, not only between functions within their own company, but with organizations up and down the supply chain. Supply chain networks are becoming more efficient and more responsive to the need of increasingly demanding customers, driven by competitive pressures and supported by developments in information technology. Hereby integrated supply chain planning approaches play a major role in efficiently matching demand of the market place with supply capabilities of inter-organisational networks. Driven by major success stories of supply chain performance improvements, almost every company is nowadays considering the integration of its supply chain entities to yield better business performance. Two of these shining examples are Hewlett Packard that saved 25% of their distribution costs by optimizing inventories and transports as well as IBM Personal Computers that achieved a cash flow release of 750 Mio. US$ by reengineering planning processes for direct materials and finished products. These impressive gains show the potential of coordinating organizational entities and integrating information flows and planning efforts along a supply chain. Which company can afford not to present such substantial gains in improving competitiveness? However, this picture may be shattered by looking behind the shining curtain of well marketed supply chain management concepts to the real state in industry. According to a research study of Mc Kinsey&Company only 32% of multinational companies, running major supply chain projects, claim that their performance has significantly increased. Furthermore Gartner Group states that more than 70% of all advanced planning system implementations, supporting the supply chain management concept, have an extensive cost [...]