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Response management for the supply chain
A
Kinaxis product story
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk editorial team
Feb 7, 2007
Toshiba selected RapidResponse to consolidate demand data from multiple sources and work with data to develop and accurately analyse various supply plans
Toshiba Europe, the European headquarters for international electronics and IT giant Toshiba Corporation has several distribution sites serving the European, Middle East and African (EMEA) markets.
With each organisation responsible for the purchasing, sales and inventory (PSI) for their respective sales regions, Toshiba Europe 's role is to provide a consolidated view of verified PSI results for Toshiba Corporation in Tokyo.
For Toshiba Europe, aligning supply with demand across regional sites was a major challenge.
Toshiba selected Kinaxis' Response Management solution RapidResponse to seamlessly consolidate demand data from multiple sources and work with data to develop and accurately analyse various supply plans - all in real time.
"Using RapidResponse, we now have a consistent, succinct PSI process that provides more accurate results," said Thomas Kossmehl, Senior Expert, IS Division, Toshiba Europe .
"With reliable demand and supply data consolidated in one place, we spend significantly less time on data gathering and more time on analysis and decision -making - which is where the business value lies".
With a 130-year history, 172,000 employees worldwide and revenues of approximately $54 billion US for Fiscal 2006, Toshiba Corporation is among the largest international IT and electronic companies.
Toshiba Europe located in Neuss, Germany, is the European headquarters for Toshiba Corporation serving the European, Middle East and African (EMEA) markets.
With the majority of manufacturing done in Asia, Toshiba has several sales and distribution sites serving the EMEA PC mobile computer market.
Each organisation is responsible for the purchasing, sales, and inventory (PSI) process for their respective sales regions.
Toshiba Europe 's role is to verify PSI results, consolidate them for an integrated view and communicate it to Toshiba Corporation in Tokyo.
As a distribution network, Toshiba Europe's main pain point is supply allocation - dynamically aligning supply with demand across regional sites.
The EMEA mobile PC industry is growing; product lifecycles are shortening; and the market is becoming increasingly fragmented.
This has meant the amount of data handled by Toshiba Europe has grown enormously, making it ever more difficult and time-consuming to consolidate and analyse data.
Overall, the systems supporting the PSI process were based on Excel worksheets, which could no longer adequately cope with the volume of data or complexity of the functions.
Toshiba Europe required a solution that would reduce the operational workload of processing an increasing number of SKUs; enhance the granularity and integrity of the information gathered and disseminated; and most importantly, exploit the information to improve the PSI process.
Toshiba Europe selected RapidResponse because it could seamlessly consolidate demand data from multiple sources, while also offering users the ability to easily work with the data to develop and analyse various supply plans in real time.
Despite its structured PSI process, Rapid Response enables Toshiba to be a more responsive organisation, providing it with a level of flexibility not achieved before given its fixed planning schedules and procedures.
The implementation time and costs were low compared to the other solutions considered, and RapidResponse integrates fully with its Oracle ERP and product roadmap systems.
With a user friendly and familiar Excel-type interface, no extensive user training was required, so the time-to-value was compelling.
"Using RapidResponse, we now have a consistent, succinct PSI process that provides more accurate results".
"With reliable demand and supply data consolidated in one place, we spend significantly less time on data gathering and more time on analysis and decision-making -which is where the business value lies".
Thomas Kossmehl, Senior Expert, IS Division, Toshiba Europe Today, with RapidResponse , the PSI process has been both enhanced and streamlined to the benefit of Toshiba's bottom line.
Non-value adding steps were removed from the PSI process, while data integrity and synchronisation has improved immensely, reducing the need for manual intervention and the probability of error.
PSI analysis and results are now executed on sales territory instead of sales organisation (one organisation can be responsible for several territories), which has resulted in significantly improved forecast accuracy and hence, better purchase plans submitted to Toshiba Tokyo.
The initial deployment of the solution took less than 5 months.
Subsequent deployment phases have focused on further exploiting the tool.
Given the success achieved, Toshiba is planning for the implementation of RapidResponse for its EMEA Consumer Product Business (TVs, DVDs, Video Recorders) in 2007.
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