Last week Wellesley Information Systems (wispubs.com) ran their annual Logistics & Supply Chain, Manufacturing and PLM events which were absolutely buzzing with over 1,400 attendees, 70+ presentations, 30+ exhibitors and 7 tracks of content over a 3 day period.
The event was kicked off with a keynote from Hans Thalbauer, General Manager Extended Supply Chain, SAP. Hans talked about the emergence of product and demand networks, and how companies can and are connecting their corporate strategies to their customer and product strategies. Hans focused on 3 main business drivers in today’s environment:
- Customer Centricity – driven by todays omni-channel environment servicing informed customers
- Personalized Solutions – Which is driving the design and manufacturing process towards a “Lot size of one”
- Improving People’s Lives – as companies adopt mission statements focused around simplification, social responsibility and compliance
Hans went on to discuss and explain how we need to translate these business realities into Business Strategies:
- Transform supply chain and logistics disciplines into Demand Networks
- Connect products, assets and machines to Product Networks
- Gain real-time insights and take action with the Internet of Things During the remainder of the session,
Hans discussed the SAP strategy for Extended Supply Chain and showed some great demonstrations and customer examples of this strategy in action from:
- Gebr. Heinemann who are optimizing there planning and logistics processes in an omni-channel world
- Tate & Lyle who are managing and adjusting recipes to support global tastes from the labs, through manufacturing and to the customer
- Hamburg Port Authority who are leveraging real time data and signals to run the connected port of the future
One of the highlights of the keynote was a presentation by executives from Bose who described how, after an initial 6 week proof of concept project, they implemented Sales & Operations Planning in January 2014 in their Home Entertainment, Noise Reduction and Professional Divisions in the Americas after a 6 month project. The next phase was a roll out of S&OP to the Asia Pacific Region in Q4 of 2015, which was followed by an upgrade of the Integrated Business Planning platform in Q1 of 2015. Bose have seen benefits through “improved efficiency of the sales planning process through global standards. They now have the flexibility to analyze revenue and margin scenarios, and have the capability to do rapid what-if scenarios and comparisons. As was stated, “Integrated Business Planning has helped turn our challenges into opportunities”.
The audience was also treated to a detailed demonstration of the Integrated Business Planning solution that numerous customers are now leveraging across the globe. It spanned the areas of Demand, Inventory, Supply and Sales & Operations Planning.
You can see the video at the following link
http://sapinsider.wispubs.com/Assets/Videos/2015/April/SCM-2015-Keynote-Hans-Thalbauer
The Keynote was followed by a series of “Solution Spotlights” in the area of:
- Supply Chain Management– I had the pleasure of hosting a panel discussion with Martin Barkman, Patrick Crampton-Thomas and Markus Rosemann where we discussed the top questions customers are asking us today
- PLM and Manufacturing – Where Thomas Ohnemus, Garrett Miller and Mike Lackey discussed how companies need to adapting to change in the 4th industrial revolution
Future blogs will cover these Spotlights and other sessions from the event.
Follow me on twitter @howellsrichard
