SOFTWARE & TECHNOLOGY
There’s a lot of data that provides a new chance to give
real-time analytics.” Sesh Rao, Infor
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to be done, then people would actually like to do that now,” he says. “There’s no longer that luxury of generating a plan, then the plan gets refreshed once a day or maybe twice a day,” Rao says. “There is this whole need of trying to do the plan and replan in a very agile way, integrating planning with execution. That is a fundamental shift. If I don’t do it, I lose the opportunity. That’s the difference these days.” “There’s a lot of data that provides a new chance to give real-time analytics,” Rao continues. For example, in forecasting, it’s not just a matter of looking at a historical forecast. There is a lot of unstructured data in the network, such as Facebook likes, Twitter feeds, portal visits, omnichannel buying and other information, that now needs to be factored in . Today’s decision-makers are challenged to find software that can analyze all of the critical components of their supply chain at the same time, says Tony Blasetti, an associate partner for supply chain solutions at IBM Corporation. Because of the number of variables in supply chain operations, analysis requires highly complex algorithms, and even then, true optimization is not achievable. Blasetti describes supply chain planning today as a “highly complex, multi-variable challenge involving suppliers, service providers, inventory, transportation, distribution, capital funds, labor and customer relationships.” “If you have a good sales and operations planning (S&OP) system linked to your product development process, you can show how a product was developed from the inception of an idea to manufacturing and where the materials are sourced from, providing reliable supply chain traceability for food ingredients and allowing companies to quickly address product safety concerns,” says George Young,
FOOD LOGISTICS | JULY 2016
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HOW DATA VISUALIZATION SOFTWARE EMPOWERS FOOD SUPPLY CHAINS Data visualization software makes it easy in any work environment to provide interactive maps, charts and infographics displaying the most important KPIs to all who need to know. Such tools improve visibility to manufacturers, distributors, retailers and other supply chain players. Users can import data from various sources for conducting analyses using dashboards. Many warehouses are finding it useful to have digital screens mounted in strategic locations to allow pickers to monitor their own performance, says Kerwin Everson, vice president of supply chain solutions at RMG Networks, a provider of data visual solutions. The software can collect data from disparate systems and organize it in visual formats to make the data actionable. Warehouse work stations that can utilize such tools include receiving, replenishing, picking, inducting, sorting, packing, shipping and more. “We see unique needs for unique data,” Everson says. “While they’re planning that warehouse or distribution center layout, why not plan for unique visibility into the supply chain? The more you get this out there, where the action is happening, the more it impacts your visibility and performance, and therefore, ultimately, your bottom line.”
a founding partner at Kalypso, a global consulting firm. He says Oracle’s Demantra software, especially when combined with product lifecycle management (PLM) software, provides full supply chain traceability. Young says the demand management software has algorithms tailored to discrete manufacturing and processing industries. “You can do what-if scenarios; you can figure out where things should go under certain scenarios,” he says. For example, if a food manufacturer expands to a new territory, an ERP solution would allow it to figure out costs and how to manage the distribution serving the new territory. It could take weeks to run 20 to 30 distribution scenarios. “With something like Demantra advanced planning software, you could put in all the different parameters and the software has built-in
optimization algorithms. You could simultaneously optimize on a number of different factors, including cost, time, number of events and so on, accelerating the analysis of multiple scenarios and identifying the optimal distribution option.” With such a system, a user can run the algorithms and get one answer. “You can have the answer more quickly with greater detail and make better decisions,” Young says. “If you are just relying on core ERP to perform a similar analysis, you are looking at a much more time-consuming process and results that carry a greater fallacy risk due to high human involvement in analysis setup and data manipulation versus automated optimization analysis processing like with Demantra. Because of this, many companies that don’t have a demand planning solution don’t perform this type of analysis at all.”
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