Synchronised supply chain planning is no longer a future promise - it is a reality, if not a pre-requisite, for competitive performance.
So says Doug Hunter, product manager: Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) at SAP Southern Africa, who maintains in order to reach ever increasing customer service demands and concurrently reduce stock investment and lead planning lead-time, the need for time-accurate information is critical.
"Often 'yesterday's data' is used as the base for supply chain planning and optimisation tools. Infeasible plans or double counting are the result," he explains.
"The combination of SAP's e-business solution environment, mySAP.com and APO allows South African companies to extend the benefits of their existing SAP system to their customers and suppliers via the Internet, making real collaborative planning work today.
"For SAP solution users, the APO component of the SAP supply chain management solution represents the only integrated supply chain solution available today," comments Hunter.
The SAP supply chain management solution enables collaborative network optimisation across the extended supply chain to help companies work closely with their partners to excel at customer service and order fulfilment. Supply chain management with mySAP.com includes new and enhanced functionality in such areas as collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR), Internet-enabled vendor-managed inventory, available-to -promise and shipment tendered.
SAP APO is now being implemented at more than 350 installations across multiple industries worldwide. Hunter explains: "The design of mySAP.com is built on the flexible and open Internet-business framework. Thus, the supply chain management solution provides a company and its supply chain partners with visibility of critical information about inventory levels, orders, demand forecasts, production plans and other key performance indicators to increase service and reduce investments in inventory, in a real-time integrated environment."
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SAP Southern Africa
mySAP.com provides a solution for all major functional areas of supply chain management, including demand and supply planning, distribution and production planning, manufacturing scheduling, materials and inventory management, production control and maintenance, procurement, transportation management, and warehouse management. Supply chain management with mySAP.com -- composed of SAP R/3, SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer, SAP Logistics Execution System and SAP Business Information Warehouse components - provides comprehensive tools for integrating information and decisions throughout the entire supply chain into a seamless, automated and optimised information infrastructure.
Supply chain management with mySAP.com is delivered through personalised, role-based, employee- and customer-facing portals of the mySAP.com Workplace. These include role-based portals for consumers, customers, employees and suppliers. In addition, supply chain management with mySAP.com is automatically linked via the mySAP.com Marketplace to other vendors' supply chain solutions.
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