SDCE100 Project Award Winners Light a Path for Supply Chain Innovation

Supply & Demand Chain Executive's 2012 "100" award honorees drive improvements and bottom-line value across their supply chains

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Successful implementation of anything new within one’s business is a challenge—whether it’s software or technology adoption or new strategy implementation. Add the intricacies that supply chain processes bring and the task can be downright daunting. But executives in this fast-paced industry know that continuing to redefine one’s business processes and management to meet market demand and assess risk management is crucial for future business growth. The old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” goes out the window. Businesses realize that sometimes there is better than what one currently has. And this month’s Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100 Award honorees are walking proof that adding value to your bottom line doesn’t always require a massive overhaul to achieve potential company savings that are well within reach. From effective S&OP practices to cost-saving inventory control and optimization to efficient warehouse management operations—implementations to improve and drive business value are happening successfully across the country. But don’t take it from us. Check out this month’s “100” projects and gain the best practices you need to grow your business.

 

Featured Projects

Enabler: Accellos Inc.
(Colorado Springs, Colo., www.accellos.com)
Customer: ITS Logistics
The Project: ITS Logistics was looking to enter the outdoor sports supply chain market with the goal to implement a new 3PL system that could handle the company’s growing needs.

 

Aditya Birla MinacsEnabler: Aditya Birla Minacs
(Bangalore, India, www.minacs.adityabirla.com)
Customer: A financial institution providing diversified services to emerging, developing and established technology companies and the life science, private equity and premium wine markets.
The Project: Telecom Expense Management: Recovery Audit and Forward Savings; Client engaged Minacs to undertake telecom audit and bill management service for $4.5 million telecom spend. The target was also to reduce client’s telecom spend with a focus on identifying contract violations, inventory optimization, overcharges and service optimization (no contract negotiations in scope).
Minacs Solutions: Gather billing data and  Customer Service Records (CSR), set up online access for all client locations; analyze telecom bills, compare contracts and tariffs and investigate non-compliances, overcharges & over payments; Identify possible areas of cost avoidance by studying existing inventory; create recommendation dashboards; process orders and file disputes to recover funds from the service providers; producing post audit bills showing reduced monthly charges and savings; monthly review and management of bills to ensure minimum billing errors.
Results: Delivered annual savings and Reduced Telecom Spend to the tune of $ 530,000 p.a.; streamlined telecom inventory by eliminating unused PRI’s, circuits and wireless services; identified further savings opportunity to the tune of $ 200K  through telecom contract renegotiations.

 

AFN LLCEnabler: AFN LLC
(Niles, Ill., www.loadafn.com)
Customer: The U.S. division of one of the world’s largest specialty beverage groups
The Project:  to minimize impact of retail charge-backs and control overall logistics costs, the company hired AFN to consolidate and manage multiple logistics functions.
Solutions/Services: Integrating order management through electronic data interchange (EDI) to optimize shipments; order process monitoring; analytics generation to track overall performance and continuously improve and eliminate redundancies throughout the supply chain.
Business Impact: By outsourcing its transportation management to AFN, the company increased visibility into all aspects of its supply chain, significantly reduced total logistics costs and improved customer service. Measurable results include $1.4 million in annual savings in the first year alone for direct shipments to a single major big box retailer with 15 North American facilities; on-time delivery performance levels consistently exceed 98 percent; 27.6 percent reduction in chargebacks; 12.0 percent reduction in expedited shipping expenses.

 

AGENTRICSEnabler: AGENTRICS
(Chicago, www.agentrics.com)
Customer: Top 50 of Fortune 500 Retailer
The Project: Collaboration VMI, Planning and Replenishment implementation
Since 2000, AGENTRICS delivered supply chain results for retailers and manufacturers in the form of reducing out of stocks; decreasing inventory levels; increasing working capital; and ultimately strengthening the ever-critical bond with consumers. AGENTRICS has pioneered supply chain solutions enabling retailers and suppliers to access action-oriented collaboration tools in a high-scale, low-cost SaaS environment, even before the concept of SaaS was adopted at a larger scale worldwide. Today, AGENTRICS has transformed traditional supply chain co-managed inventory models into innovative collaborative-managed inventory solutions allowing trusted relationships to extend beyond the retail distribution center, by extending the power of of true collaboration to the stores’ shelves.

 

Enabler: Amazing Print Corp.
(Toronto, www.amazingprint.com)
Customer: MyCardPack.com
The Project: to automate ordering of highly personalized and patented printed product.

 

Enabler: Amber Road
(East Rutherford, N.J., www.amberroad.com)
Customer: Bunzl Distribution USA
The Project: With more than 90 warehouses in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and Mexico, Bunzl Distribution USA needed a Global Trade Management (GTM) solution to help improve visibility of their inbound shipments, monitor carrier and supplier performance, and automated Customs entry to improve customer service, reduce brokerage fees and strengthen compliance with international trade regulations. By integrating the end-to-end import supply chain on a single GTM platform, Bunzl can better coordinate the process among origin operations, its logistics providers and branch operations. This allows Bunzl to eliminate supply chain bottlenecks, better manage carrier and supplier performance, and reduce entry processing and brokerage fees.
Solutions/Services: Amber Road’s Supply Chain Visibility and Trade Import solutions
Business Impact: Since implementing Amber Road’s GTM solutions, Bunzl was able to significantly streamline its inbound supply chain. The company now has a centralized import process where all its branches access all compliance reference data, in-transit shipment and inventory levels, and all import transactional data. This has improved coordination across the company to meet higher service level agreements and to reduce supply chain costs. Bunzl has reduced fees associated with demurrage, detention and per diem as a result of providing internal and external customers with increased visibility to their inventory in-transit and allowing for better planning. Brokerage and entry fees have also been reduced, since Bunzl can now pay its carriers directly, instead of paying via brokers. Furthermore, the distributor has streamlined its payment process by establishing in-transit milestones to pre-determine when to initiate the payment process.

 

Enabler: Ariba
(Sunnyvale, Calif., www.ariba.com)
Customer: Cox Enterprises Inc.
The Project: Implementing Ariba Procure-to-Pay to consolidate information from six ERP systems, centralize its indirect spend and capitalize on purchasing power across divisions

 

ArkievaEnabler: Arkieva
(Wilmington, De., www.arkieva.com)
Customer: Manufacturer of integrated fibers and polymers
The Project: Primary function of the project was to provide a solution that could easily scale and adapt to changes in the product portfolio to help manage the clients thousands of SKUs; and to allow them to better control inventory.
Solutions/Services: Arkieva Demand Planning software; Arkieva Inventory Management software
Business Impact: As a result of the Arkieva solution implementation, the customer was able to reduce their inventory by 30 percent, which equates to more than $30 million in savings. It improved the sales force forecasting because their global sales force can interface with Arkieva. It also enabled the client to analyze variability, see the accuracy of their forecasts and view the collaborative history of open orders. This resulted in saved time for the planners and the increased ability to identify areas that require the most focus, allowing them to direct sales leasers to those items that needed the most attention.

 

Enabler: Aspen Logistics Inc.
(Temecula, Calif., www.aspenlogistics.com)
Customer: United National Consumer Suppliers
The Project: Customer required a logistics partner that enabled them to purchase, warehouse, and ship their products into new online markets.

 

Enabler: Avendra
Customer: TMI Hospitality
The Project: product optimization studies/reporting

 

Avercast LLCEnabler: Avercast LLC
(Rexburg, Idaho, www.avercast.com)
Customer: Supply Technologies
The Project: After 15 years of forecast creation from an ERP system, the company sought a pure forecast and demand planning platform.
Solutions/Services: Avercast Business Forecasting; Avercast Supply Planning
Business Impact: Within the first week of its launch, Avercast identified anomalies in Supply Technologies systems’ output based on settings that were adding noise to an already unreliable forecast. As the Avercast software self-selected among its 187 replenishment algorithms which best fit each of Supply Technologies’ nearly 100,000 active SKUs, the company reduced its inventory by $6 million, six months into the deployment. In addition, uploading large marketing intelligence data sets from numerous customers into the system has become greatly simplified.

 

Basware Inc.Enabler: Basware Inc.
(Stamford, Conn., www.basware.com)
Customer: Global leader in power and automation technologies
The Project: Objective was to automate invoice processing to establish a globally unified accounts payable process, improve productivity and gain visibility
Solutions/Services: Basware Invoice Automation (including Basware Invoice and Basware Match)
Business Impact: Basware enabled the company to unify financial processes, centralize AP information and perform consistent KPI reporting for the first time—speeding up month-end reporting. The customer gained visibility and control, increased payment accuracy, improved cost allocation and reduced risk of outgoing payments. The company now can collaborate with all of its suppliers and ensure consistency across each business unit around the world.

 

Enabler: Cadec Global Inc.
(Manchester, N.H., www.cadec.com)
Customer: Willow Run Foods
The Project: Implement electronic logs to eliminate paper in truck cabs, reduce time spent auditing paper logs and have better visibility into fleet operations.

 

Cadre Technologies Inc.Enabler: Cadre Technologies Inc.
(Denver, www.cadretech.com)
Customer: 3rd Party Logistics and Transportation
The Project: To provide inventory visibility and more effectively manage food-grade products to meet FDA requirements and retail compliance.
Solutions/Services: Microsoft Platform (.NET, SQL Server), Hosted solution, real-time WMS with RF, remote Web-access for inventory reporting and remote operations.
Business Impact: In the first 12 months of operation since implementation, business increased by more than 40 percent and the company expanded from a single facility to three warehouses. Also significantly increased volume of business in existing accounts and closed new accounts that company previously was not qualified to handle.

 

Enabler: Cadent Resources Inc.
(Arlington Heights, Ill., www.demandcaster.com)
Customer: Manufacturer of electronic components
The Project: Reduce overall inventory investment across locations and improve planning process of overseas sub-contract manufacturing entity.

 

Enabler: Campfire Interactive Inc.
(Ann Arbor, Mich., www.cfi2.com)
Customer: DOW Automotive
The Project: Campfire provided DOW with an enterprise-level Revenue acquisition management system for sales opportunity management, revenue forecasting and decision support.

 

Enabler: Censeo Consulting Group
(Washington, D.C., www.censeoconsulting.com)
Customer: U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC)
The Project: With reduced budgets, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) aimed to cut operating costs by $50 million per year while still achieving mission needs.

 

Enabler: Core Solutions
(Hong Kong, www.coresolutions.com)
Customer: Praktiker
The Project: Praktiker Group Buying Hong Kong required an automated solution to centrally manage and integrate their end-to-end global sourcing processes.

 

Enabler: Corporate United
Customer: $7.2 billion global manufacturing company
The Project: safety supplies contract implementation

 

Enabler: CVM Solutions
Customer: Construction services provider
The Project: supplier management process efficiency

 

Enabler: Deacom Inc.
(Wayne, Pa., www.deacom.com)
Customer: Independent Beverage Company LLC
The Project: Independent Beverage implemented the DEACOM ERP system to integrate production, warehouse management and administrative functions into one comprehensive system.

 

Enabler: Demand Solutions
(St. Louis, www.demandsolutions.com)
Customer: Lifetime Brands
The Project: This project looked to consolidate and integrate individual elements that existed in disconnected form from within multiple systems— SAP, demand solutions, Excel— in order to monitor the “health” of the supply chain and assign functional responsibility and accountability to improve performance such as inventory turns and customer order fill rate and visibility.
Solutions/Services: SAP/R3; SAP; Demand Solutions Forecast Management; Qlikview Business Intelligence
Business Impact: Forecasting improved by instituting accountability metrics at the salesperson level tied to their variable compensation. Forecast accuracy improved from about 50 to 72 percent accuracy. Divisional level S&OP meetings commenced as part of this project to focus on business process and result improvements at the divisional level. Additionally, corrective action investigations began about forecast inaccuracies so that the appropriate people/product/process changes can be made to continue to improve results. “The hard benefit was a $35,000,000 reduction in inventory and increased customer service levels. Soft benefits include changing the manner in which the ‘business’ of the supply chain is managed through greater visibility to overall results and greater collaboration in developing plans for business and process improvements.”—Clifford Siegal, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain

 

DiCentralEnabler: DiCentral
(Houston, TX., www.dicentral.com)
Customer: 5th & Ocean Clothing Company
The Project: EDI integration resulted in expansion

 

Enabler: DSSI LLC
(Louisville, Ky., www.directsourcing.com)
Customer: Safran
The Project: To provide interim source-to-pay procurement services to a multinational company setting up a new U.S. manufacturing facility.

 

Enabler: eBuilder
(Stockholm, Sweden, www.ebuilder.com)
Customer: Alfa Laval
The Project: Alfa Laval wanted a control tower solution that could provide them with end-to-end visibility and control over their supply chain process.

 

Enabler: Elemica
(Exton, Pa., www.elemica.com)
Customer: Top 50 global chemical manufacturer
The Project: Automating customer orders including all customers that lack formal B2B integration programs.

 

Enabler: e-LYNXX Corp.
(Chambersburg, Pa., www.e-lynxx.com)
Customer: International heavy equipment manufacturer
The Project: to reduce costs for custom goods and services, such as printing, without compromising quality or timely delivery.

 

Enabler: Emptoris Inc.
(Burlington, Mass., www.emptoris.com)
Customer: Anglo American
The Project: Centralize and transform global procurement organization to drive $1 billion in sustainable savings and improve visibility, compliance and risk mitigation.

 

Enabler: enVista
(Carmel, Ind., www.envistacorp.com)
Customer: Top 60 retailer
The Project: To reduce inventory levels and increase inventory turns, improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs.

 

Epicor Software Corp.Enabler: Epicor Software Corp.
(Dublin, Calif., www.epicor.com)
Customer: CPO Commerce Inc.
The Project: Epicor provided CPO Commerce an integrated business software solution to support business management and control in order to promote efficiency, growth and profitability.
Solutions/Services: Epicor ERP
Business Impact: Implementation proved to be a valuable process for the company. CPO liked that Epicor sells their software direct and felt comfortable that the Epicor implementation team is also involved in the development of the software and could work on future patches and other upgrades. Easy accessibility to data was another important piece of criteria to CPO and the business activity queries (BAQs) available in Epicor was a very important functionality and a big differentiator during the selection process.

 

Enabler: Fieldglass Inc.
(Chicago, www.fieldglass.com)
Customer: Large manufacturing company
The Project: With five different accounting systems in place, the customer was looking for ways to automate the invoicing process and streamline payments; and reduce risk and provide visibility into its current contingent workforce.

 

Enabler: Focus Chain
(Bogota, Colombia)
Customer: Energy tools company
The Project: Reduce time to market adopting supply chain best practices like Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) and define an effective planning cycle that include demand management practices and tools before balancing with supply chain resources in order to take the most profitable decisions.

 

Enabler: FORTE
(Mason, Ohio, www.forte-industries.com)
Customer: Retail apparel company
The Project: Retailer’s manual, paper-based, put-to-store system required the breakdown and sortation of items in each case into totes before manually pushing a train of totes to each of 16 put lanes. As a result, each garment was touched twice before it was packed. In order to automate this labor-intensive operation, FORTE built an additional 16 lanes on a mezzanine level over the existing operation. The manual breakdown operation was completely eliminated. Pallet loads of individual SKUs are now brought to a case conveyor that sorts them into the appropriate put lanes. A state-of-the-art put-to-light system was implemented and is controlled by FORTE’s Smart Warehouse Suite warehouse control system (WCS) software. The Smart Warehouse Suite’s Automation Director receives the store requirements from the warehouse management system and dynamically routes the cases to the appropriate put lanes. Automation Director dynamically re-routes residual products from cases that weren’t fully depleted in a lane into other put lanes and uses a unique algorithm to automatically assign excess units to the highest volume stores.
Solutions/Services: Material Handling Automation; Put to Light; Warehouse Control System (WCS) software
Business Impact: With 755 stores across the country, the major fashion retailer is able to handle triple the unit volume; double the number of stores serviced; eliminate the breakdown process; increase efficiency in the put-to-store process by more than 25 percent; improve accuracy of shipments to the stores from 93 to 99.5 percent; and handle seasonal peaks with limited overtime. The increased capacity has shortened the time from when the product is received at the distribution center to the store shelf and has enabled the retailer to add related product lines such as footwear and fragrances.

 

FortnaEnabler: Fortna
(Reading, Pa., www.fortna.com)
Customer: Major retailer
The Project: The primary business objective of the project was to retrofit its distribution centers and remap its distribution process to better support company growth. This retailer’s five distribution centers could not keep pace with company’s expansion of 30 new stores per year. Each distribution center handled a specific channel with no redundancy. In addition, the equipment and procedures were outdated.
Solutions/Services: Distribution center optimization services; Material Handling Systems (Dematic Put to Light, Print and Apply); program management; system integration (Manhattan Associates WMS); operations support
Business Impact: This retailer cut in half the time to ship from distribution center to store and lowered operational costs by $23 million. Fortna helped retrofit retailer’s distribution centers and remap its distribution process—cutting in half the time it took to ship from the distribution center to the store. The project entailed closing three distribution centers and significantly updating the remaining two—including a move from batch ticketing of products to an on-demand flow ticketing model.  Now, both distribution centers are fully redundant and accommodate every channel.

 

GatewitEnabler: Gatewit
(Lisbon, www.gatewit.com)
Customer: Instituto de Segurança Social - ISS
The Project: ISS decided to reorganize their procurement department in order to centralize buying information, standardize the purchasing process and gain control over spend.
Solutions/Services: Gatewit Public Sourcing Platform; Process Re-engineering; Change Management; Training
Business Impact: Gatewit Sourcing helped ISS standardize its processes reducing the tender cycle with automated workflows; decrease time between different stages; and centralize all its procurement information in one body. In the last year ISS was able to estimate more than five million Euros saved directly through sourcing processes; 60 percent savings in administrative tasks; and 30 percent negotiation power savings with eAuctions.

 

Genpact LimitedEnabler: Genpact Limited
(Hamilton, HM AX, Bermuda, www.genpact.com)
Customer: Energy Major
The Project—Objective was to achieve a price deflation of 1.8+ percent and improve availability of materials/services sourced for handling of equipment outages.
Solutions/Services: Oracle e-Business suite (for procurement processes); proprietary tool for outage planning; Microsoft Office suite for transactional sourcing
Business Impact: The project yielded a price savings of $1.8MM in Year 1.The second-year target of $1.2MM was met in the first quarter of 2012. The projected savings for the remaining part of the year is $5MM. The backlog of purchase orders has been reduced by 50 percent and the time taken to add new vendors has dropped from 35 to 21 days. Accounts payables issues have been reduced by 56 percent, improving supplier relationships.

 

GEPEnabler: GEP
(Clark, NJ., www.gep.com)
Customer: global proprietary computer storage and data management company
The Project: procurement outsourcing

 

GHXEnabler: GHX
(Louisville, Colo., www.ghx.com)
Customer: Champlain Health Supply Services (CHSS)
The Project: To build an integrated supply chain system that would improve performance and generate $32.5M in cumulative cost savings over a 10-year period.
Solutions/Services: GHX Business Solutions
Business Impact: “Working with GHX, we have taken a group of hospitals and put into place the framework and building blocks to help enable them to fully control and drive spend. We had set a goal of $32 million in supply chain cost savings over a 10-year period but with the capabilities of Procurement Suite, we now expect to realize that goal in just six years.” —John Martin, Director, Hospital Services, Queensway Carleton Hospital, and Regional Lead, Champlain Health Supply Services

 

Enabler: Global4PL
(Santa Clara, Calif., www.global-4pl.com)
Customer: Telecomm company
The Project: to manage inbound supply chain from Asia; connect multiple CM/suppliers to allow Merge In Transit to satisfy customer orders directly bypassing distribution center and hubs and Europe.
Solutions/Services: POHorizon Visibility and PO/Invoice/ Management Document Control Management Freight Billing Software Integration with Ariba and Oracle suppliers
Business Impact: Inventory carrying cost reduction handling cost reduction; shorter delivery cycles; greater control of inventory in transit; greater import/export compliance by controlling the classification, COO and valuation of the shipments.

 

Enabler: Greybeard Advisors LLC
Customer: Fortune 500 company
The Project: procurement assessment and transformation

 

Enabler: GT Nexus
Customer: Fortune 100 manufacturing company
The Project: global supply chain visibility control tower

 

Enabler: IASTA
(Carmel, Ind., www.iasta.com)
Customer: Cushman & Wakefield
The Project: Customer’s procurement had no professional function in place and suffered from a legacy of employees making independent purchasing decisions.
Solutions/Services: Iasta SmartSource; Iasta Sourcing Acceleration Center. Iasta SmartAnalytics implementation is underway 2012.
Business Impact: The procurement team built a portfolio of successful RFP’s, reverse auctions and solid contract management examples. To date, $35 million in client spend has run through reverse auctions and nearly 400 client contracts sit in the tool. Online bidding within the tool allows C&W to show prospective clients their approach is different from its competitors because they use technology to encourage open competition instead of one-on-one conversations. Contract management technology makes certain insurance certificated are up-to-date and proper planning time is allotted when contracts are about to expire. “While C&W’s competitors are focused on creating global deals, C&W uses technology to make sure that the right decision is being made for each particular client—while at the same time, the data stored in SmartSource helps identify opportunities where bigger leverage would be appropriate. The data now in the tool will provide a ‘to-do’ list for years to come. And as we implement SmartAnalytics, we are excited about the reporting and analytical tools that will soon be at our fingertips.”—Joanna Martinez Executive Managing Director & Chief Procurement Officer Cushman & Wakefield Inc.

 

IES Ltd.Enabler: IES Ltd.
(Midland Park, N.J., www.iesltd.com)
Customer: Logistics service provider
The Project: This added functionality equips LSPs with the tools they need to effectively manage their customer’s global supply chains and deliver a higher level of service.
Solutions/Services: Web-based, ASP solution for purchase order management. The EDI-capable product integrates with trading partners, collaboratively bringing diverse supply chain participants into one streamlined system.
Business Impact: The Web-based IES PO Management solution allows LSPs to offer this valuable service and tap into a new revenue source. With the IES eCellerate solution in place, companies can unlock one of the most important cost-saving options available—EDI. With the automated import of purchase order information, huge savings in labor and error-related costs can be realized. The overall result is a value-added service with a minimum of labor-costs; it enables LSPs to expand/supplement their product offerings and increase revenue.

 

Enabler: IHS Inc.
((Denver, www.ihs.com)
IHS is a leading source of information and analysis in critical areas that shape end-to-end value chains, including supplier and supply risk management; technology insight, component supply, bill-of-materials (BOM) and parts management; item logistics and procurement; commodity cost and pricing analysis; economic and industry forecasts; supply chain risk management and strategy planning. Its solutions have uniquely helped supply chain executives and practitioners solve a wide range of complex supply chain challenges. This includes offering strategies to alleviate problems created during the Japan crisis and Thailand floods, as well as mitigating serious risks from the use of counterfeit and high risk parts and materials.

 

Enabler: InfinityQS International
Customer: snack food manufacturer
The Project: quality management system implementation

 

InmarEnabler: Inmar
Winston-Salem, N.C., www.inmar.com)
Customer: Healthcare company
The Project: Inmar entered into a strategic relationship with the client to identify root causes of unsaleables and develop a plan for reduction.
Solutions/Services: N/A
Business Impact: The healthcare company tracked unsaleables data nationally including certain retail partners. In doing so, the customer was able to realize the following: relative to one particular retail client, unsaleables decreased by 29 percent in 2010 from the prior year and beat the aggressive reduction target established by the business. In addition, the client's unsaleables decreased on a national level in excess of $5 million in 2010 from the prior year and beat financial targets.

 

Enabler: INSIGHT Inc.
Customer: Leading brand beverage provider
The Project: Supply chain network design

 

Enabler: Insight Sourcing Group
(Norcross, Ga., www.insightsourcing.com)
Customer: Two U.S. top-four mattress manufacturers
The Project: To identify areas of savings opportunity for both individual companies and combined strategic sourcing projects (M&A Procurement Integration)

 

Enabler: Integration Point
(Charlotte, N.C., www.integrationpoint.com)
Customer: Fortune 500 healthcare company
The Project: Implement FTA software to assist with trade agreement qualifications, handling Bill of Material analysis and requesting/producing Certificates of Origin.

 

IAS-International Asset SystemsEnabler: IAS-International Asset Systems
(Oakland, Calif., www.interasset.com)
Customer: Freight forwarder
The Project: Automate moving off manual (phone, fax, email) statuses of various event milestones; and facilitate matching and mating of container/shipment to inland rail, truck and customer delivery locations
Solutions/Services: IAS Dispatch cloud-based TMS solution
Business Impact: “The IAS platform enabled us to connect to and leverage our community of motor carriers in the U.S. on a common platform and gateway, streamlining our processes and automating information flows across all parties. We are able to facilitate the dispatch, capture the delivery details, the ePOD and the return of the container to the owner while providing backhaul opportunities and reduction of empty miles.”—Head of Global Intermodal for IAS global freight forwarder customer.

 

John Galt Solutions Inc.Enabler: John Galt Solutions Inc.
(Chicago, www.johngalt.com)
Customer: Kemps
The Project:  Order/Demand Management/Forecasting: Kemps recognized that their existing demand management methods were inadequate to deal with their highly promotional business. They sought a system that would be able to give greater visibility into the impact of promotions on demand without requiring a great deal of manual maintenance.
Solutions/Services: John Galt Solutions - Atlas Planning Suite
Business Impact: In the last six months, Kemps has improved their forecast accuracy from the 60 to 70 percent range to more than 90 percent. This accuracy improvement drove a tremendous increase in customer service level, reducing stock-outs and enabling a 2012 project to reduce inventory costs. Stock-outs have been tremendously reduced as well, recapturing lost sales.

 

JVKellyGroup Inc.Enabler: JVKellyGroup Inc.
(Huntington, N.Y., www.jvkg.com)
Customer: Global insurance company
The Project: To implement a centralized Contract Management System that can be maintained and used locally in a cost-effective manner. Additional project objectives were to track expiration dates, certifications and key data points specific to the client; and to get the system up and running for under a budget of $50,000 including a custom dashboard, specific reporting and client-specific design and branding.
Solutions/Services: JVKellyGroup’s Contract Mangement Solution
Business Impact: The organization was able to quickly gain control over their contracts, stay under budget with the project and have a tool that can be used across the enterprise with definite results. From an audit perspective, it gave transparency to agreements and tracked expirations and key clauses. From an operational perspective, it allowed sharing and visibility into existing agreements for better utilization of approved suppliers. The roll-out to the field was easy and uncomplicated since the tool was intuitive and the total solution permitted excellent communications between the users and the administrators to expedite the answering of any questions.

 

Enabler: Kinaxis
Customer: Premier provider of innovative measurement solutions in the electronic test, life science and chemical analysis markets
The Project: vertically-integrated planning process

 

Enabler: LeanLogistics
(Holland, Mich., www.leanlogistics.com)
Customer: Supplier and solutions provider to food service, in-store bakery and retail markets
The Project: Company needed centralized control, scalability and visibility into process to better manage and measure transportation execution management.

 

LogFireEnabler: LogFire
(Atlanta, www.logfire.com)
Customer: Supermercados Peruanos S.A. (SPSA)
The Project: Challenged with expansion, SPSA required a mature, robust, and scalable WMS system that could be implemented entirely in four months. In addition, logistical processes needed to be redesigned and integrated with SAP’s existing ERP system.
Solutions/Services: SaaS WMS Systems and Dashboard Solutions
Business Impact: The LogFire solution provided the necessary flexibility for SPSA to extend its supply chain and implement a new distribution center with a Tier 1. LogFire was able to train and certify SPSA’s operators with new functionality and new processes at SPSA, meeting their tight timeline to complete the project. In addition to increasing its productivity and service levels, SPSA decreased its start-up costs and reduced implementation timelines. “LogFire’s SaaS model provided us the necessary flexibility to extend our supply chain and implement a new distribution center with a Tier 1 WMS solution right before the end of year peak season, which was our major goal. LogFire was able to train and certify our operators with new functionality and processes never before used at SPSA.”—Gabriel Ortiz, Vice President, Supply Chain, SPSA

 

LogilityEnabler: Logility
(Atlanta, www.logility.com)
Customer: Global Fortune 500 manufacturer
The Project: To determine the optimal inventory levels to serve customers; establish & measure inventory targets; and dynamically adjust to changing marketing conditions to create a competitive advantage. In addition, the company needed to minimize stock-outs and expedited shipments while quickly responding to changing market conditions.
Solutions/Services: Logility Voyager Inventory Optimization
Business Impact: The company had a total deduced inventory of 37 percent. Additionally, they maintained or improved customer service levels; enabled a higher degree of visibility across its supply chain; gained powerful “what if” scenario planning to support the S&OP process; and optimized the global supply chain.

 

Enabler: Lucas Systems Inc.
(Wexford, Pa., www.lucasware.com)
Customer: The Container Store
The Project: The Container Store installed Jennifer VoicePlus to improve the productivity of picking processes in their distribution center in coordination with their Catalyst Warehouse Management System.

 

Enabler: Manhattan Associates
(Atlanta, www.manh.com)
Customer: Lennox International Inc.
The Project: Warehouse Management: Lennox International moved from a national stocking strategy to a hub and spoke model (replenishment time from four days down to one day) to enable their new store fronts.

 

Mobile DemandEnabler: Mobile Demand
(Hiawatha, Iowa, www.ruggedtabletpc.com)
Customer: Norfolk Southern Corp.
The Project: Norfolk Southern needed to make it easier for their customers to track their shipments in real time.
Solutions/Services: 1200 MobileDemand T8700 Rugged Tablet PC’s.
Business Impact: Norfolk Southern’s In Transit Visibility solution—RIT (Remote Intelligent Terminal)—is part of its Track 2012 process, a plan to significantly improve all aspects of the company’s business. Prior to RIT, crews recorded information on paper and faxed it to centralized yard operations at the end of the workday. RIT saves time over conventional methods and ensures more accurate data reporting and real-time information.

 

Enabler: ModusLink Global Solutions
Customer: Mobile communications leader
The Project: global supply chain outsourcing, fulfillment and packaging

 

Enabler: Murphy Warehouse Co.
(Minneapolis, www.murphywarehouse.com)
Customer: Interalia
The Project: Murphy Warehouse Company partnered with Interalia to store, distribute and handle logistical services of all U.S. shipments.

 

Enabler: NetSuite Inc.
(San Mateo, Calif., www.netsuite.com)
Customer: Leading image capture company
The Project: to streamline global business processes—including manufacturing, distribution and sales—with a cloud-based ERP solution.

 

Next Level Purchasing Inc.Enabler: Next Level Purchasing Inc.
(Pittsburgh, www.nextlevelpurchasing.com)
Customer: Next Level Purchasing Association
The Project: To provide purchasing and supply chain professionals an authoritative library of resources to enable them to implement effective solutions and achieve better procurement results.
Solutions/Services: Next Level Purchasing Association
Business Impact: While the procurement departments of yesteryear may have created requests for proposals, supplier scorecards, internal customer service surveys and checklists from scratch, the time and resources required to develop those tools internally—or even scan through search results full of less-than-authoritative links—are no longer available luxuries. To address this challenge, the Next Level Purchasing Association offers the NLPA Library, a comprehensive resource center featuring a collection of supply management templates; checklists; slide decks; archived Webinars; transcripts from interviews with industry experts; and much more. The NLPA Library has been established to provide procurement professionals with readily available and high-quality solutions to a variety of challenges they are likely to face, whether they are preparing themselves for the future or responding to an urgent need.

 

Enabler: NGC Software
(Miami, www.ngcsoftware.com)
Customer: Global women’s and girl’s fashion company
The Project: Improve collaboration and visibility with global supply chain; replace spreadsheets and manual processes; improve speed of supply chain execution.

 

NovationEnabler: Novation
(Irving, Texas, www.novationco.com)
Customer: Novation
The Project: Novation needed a way to manage its RFP and contracting processes quickly and efficiently. This included finding a way to integrate and consolidate diverse business applications to streamline workflow.
Solutions/Services: Emptoris Sourcing and Emptoris Contract Management
Business Impact: The entire enterprise moved to the new system with virtually no need to re-engineer business processes or create new burdens on resources. Novation’s move to Emptoris has not negatively impacted any of the cycle time metrics that are tracked. Instead, approval and execution metrics have been favorable since the implementation of the system. In less than six months, Novation released more than 100 RFx’s to more than 750 suppliers.

 

NTE LLCEnabler: NTE LLC
(Chicago, www.nte.com)
Customer: Top 10 Third Party Logistics company
The Project: The objective was to substantially reduce manual labor, A/P and A/R delay; and provide single-point integration to multiple on-premise applications, TMS’s and cloud-based WMS’s.
Solutions/Services: NTE ERP platform features (TMS, B2B Collaboration UI, EDI/XML business rules and resolution process) and B2B collaboration
Business Impact: Substantial reduction in data error resulted in ongoing manual effort, delay in payment to carriers and delay in billing clients. All systems are now single point integrated rather than a patch-quilt of multiple integrations from all systems and carriers to all systems and carriers, which can create a administration and maintenance challenge for IT to handle.

 

OptricityEnabler: Optricity
(Research Triangle Park, N.C., www.optricity.com)
Customer: Global consumer packaged goods company
The Project: With a goal to improve warehouse slotting practices in order to cut costs , the customer identified a need for an advanced slotting tool. The customer’s desired outcome for this slotting project was significant order picking travel reduction or notable overall cost reduction.
Solutions/Services: OptiSlot DC
Business Impact: The customer completed this slotting project in two months, and the resulting benefit was a 21 percent reduction in order picking travel distance. In addition to surpassing the travel reduction objective, this project yielded results beyond the scope of the original initiative. Using customer data, OptiSlot visually and quantitatively demonstrated that, in the pre-project state, products were poorly slotted in putaway groups. OptiSlot recommended putaway grouping improvements based on an analysis of item velocities and input from the client.  Also, OptiSlot identified items where at least 90 percent of outbound velocity was in cases. OptiSlot was then able to slot those pallets above the case pick line, thereby increasing replenishment efficiency.  Finally, based on customer defined constraints, OptiSlot identified out-of-place items and slotted them effectively in the correct aisles.

 

PINC SolutionsEnabler: PINC Solutions
(Alameda, Calif., www.pincsolutions.com)
Customer: DSC Logistics
The Project—To gain efficiency and lower costs at DSC Logistics’ Mira Loma, Calif.-based site, DSC Logistics deployed PINC’s advanced yard management solution which consisted of passive-RFID tags placed on containers; readers installed on the yard trucks; and software to manage read data that could then be shared with operations, customers and freight companies via the Web.
Solutions/Services: PINC Solutions’ Advanced Yard Management Systems (YMS)
Business Impact: The PINC system enabled the company to achieve savings by increasing the yard-goat drivers’ productivity, reducing average travel distance within the yard, streamlining communication between drivers and the shipping office and eliminating the manual yard-check process. It also provided operators the ability to share data with freight carriers and customers; and utilize the system to resolve detention claims from their carriers.

 

Enabler: Plan4Demand
(Pittsburgh, www.plan4demand.com)
Customer: Crown Imports
The Project: To revamp the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process to gain visibility into long-term financial and operational plans and forecast more accurately.

 

Enabler: Prime Advantage
(Chicago, www.primeadvantage.com)
Customer: Berner Food & Beverage
The Project: A private label food/beverage manufacturer had to quickly identify a new plastic wrap supplier in order to avoid regular, unplanned shut-downs of its production line.

 

Enabler: Puridiom
(Mechanicsburg, Pa., www.puridiom.com)
Customer: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island
The Project: Transform purchasing, vendor management and accounts payable functions through the implementation of an end-to-end procure-to-pay system.
Solutions/Services: Puridiom 4.0 enterprise procurement cloud platform
Business Impact: BCBSRI improved overall performance, increased budget compliance, enforced process compliance, reduced maverick spending, increased spend under management and visibility and focused resources on high value and strategic activities. In addition, within the first three months, BCBSRI significantly improved overall performance by elimination of cumbersome, time-consuming and inefficient paperwork; increased budget compliance; enforced corporate purchasing policies and process compliance (i.e., no PO, no pay). Consolidation of supplier base and the strengthening of supplier relationships are the remaining goals as BCBSRI continues the rollout. “With Puridiom, we increased the amount of online interaction with suppliers and continued to reduce our manual, paper-based transaction costs as well as take advantage of payment term rebates. With the spend visibility Puridiom provides, we can also better target who are key strategic suppliers and place them in our Key Supplier Program, which also drives cost improvement year after year.”—Dan Warn, Chief Procurement Officer, BCBSRI

 

Enabler: Rapid Ratings
Customer: Fortune 1000 global supplier of equipment and aftermarket parts and services
The Project: risk solution implementation

 

Enabler: Ryder System Inc.
(Miami, www.ryder.com)
Customer: Global consumer electronics company
The Project: global consumer electronics company required a logistics partner to help manage returned products while striving to meet its zero-landfill goals.

 

Enabler: SAP
(Walldorf, Germany, www.sap.com)
Customer: Global food provider
The Project: The customer's objectives were to reduce supplier and operation costs, simplify and globally standardize indirect purchasing processes, fuel top-line growth initiatives; and fully integrate with other SAP Business Suite applications.
Solutions/Services: SAP SRM
Business Impact: By leveraging SAP SRM, the customer was able to drive process standardization, full spend visibility and system-enabled compliance, allowing them to achieve significant savings across multiple indirect categories. Through the usage of SAP SRM, the customer achieved double-digit savings in some categories; high percentage of transactions on catalogs, driving an online shopping experience for users and compliance to negotiated contracts; significant efficiencies in capturing purchasing data for sourcing (from more than six weeks to real time); and savings generated from initial deployments to fund subsequent rollouts for the company.

 

Enabler: SciQuest Inc.
(Cary, N.C., www.sciquest.com)
Customer: Utah State University
The Project: The university wanted to create a more user-friendly purchasing system to enable staff and personnel to review products and catalogs online, submit orders electronically and track purchases.

 

Enabler: 4SIGHT Supply Chain Solutions
(Paramus, N.J., www.go4sight.com)
Customer: Top 100 retailer
The Project: Top 50 supermarket company brought in 4SIGHT to plan and execute the successful implementation of Warehouse Management & WorkForce Management.

 

Enabler: Silvon Software
(Westmont, Ill., www.silvon.com)
Customer: A global producer of dairy products
The Project: To provide better supply chain visibility and forecasting capabilities to a leading dairy products producer and distributor with $300 million in gross annual sales.

 

Enabler: Skinit Inc.
Customer: consumer electronics provider
The Project: integrated customization supply chain

 

Enabler: Smart Software Inc.
(Belmont, Mass., www.smartcorp.com)
Customer: Montreal Transit
The Project: Optimize new and spare parts inventories and better manage availability and parts distribution in the company’s network.

 

Enabler: SolveIT Software Pty Ltd.
(Adelaide SA, Australia, www.solveitsoftware.com)
Customer: Global wine production-distribution company
The Project: The planning & scheduling activities at the winery were previously managed manually, which limited forward-looking visibility and opportunities for cost- or environment-optimized decision making.

 

Source One Management Services LLCEnabler: Source One Management Services LLC
(Willow Grove, Pa., www.sourceoneinc.com)
Customer: An academic medical center comprised of a university, hospital and health network.
The Project: Implement supply chain transformation program to sustain profitability as medical providers struggle with negative revenue impacts from the Healthcare Act.
Solutions/Services: Spend Analysis, Strategic Sourcing, Business Process Outsourcing, Electronic Sourcing tools (www.WhyAbe.com)
Business Impact: Source One’s strategic sourcing practices in addition to collaboration with the existing GPO broadened the scope of cost-reduction opportunities which allowed the medical center to achieve significant savings. This success was largely due to the strong teaming effort between Source One and the hospital’s executive committee, with strong buy-in and support from the stakeholders. As a direct result of Source One’s efforts, their client was able to maintain profitability and avoid layoffs of medical staff.

 

Enabler: Spend Radar
(Chicago, www.spendradar.com)
Customer: Fortune 1000 engineering and construction company
The Project: The goal of the project was to understand the impact of supplier performance on missed customer project deadlines.

 

Enabler: SPS Commerce
(Minneapolis, www.spscommerce.com)
Customer: Nuo Tech
The Project: Receiving drop-ship orders and sending invoices electronically with retail customers in a hands- free, cloud environment.

 

Enabler: Stamps.com Inc.
(Los Angeles, www.stamps.com)
Customer: Stamps.com
The Project: To provide mailing/shipping solution that allows supply chain organizations the ability to manage postage spending for multiple offices from one centralized location.

 

Enabler: SYSPRO
(Costa Mesa, Calif., www.syspro.com)
Customer: Samuel Strapping Systems
The Project: Lean manufacturing operations, reduce inventory levels and fully meet customer demands despite demand fluctuation.
Solutions/Services: Samuel Strapping utilized SYSPRO ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) to reduce inventories by $2 million while still meeting customer demand. In addition, Samuel Strapping employed SYSPRO ERP and its fully integrated Preactor Advanced Planning and Scheduling System (APS) to adopt “green” practices.
Business Impact: Samuel Strapping utilized SYSPRO ERP to reduce inventories by $2 million while still meeting customer demand. In addition, Samuel Strapping  employed SYSPRO ERP and its fully integrated Preactor Advanced Planning and Scheduling System (APS) to adopt “green” practices. By targeting an inventory-level steady around the mean and adjusting production levels, a process Samuel Strapping calls ‘inventory modulation,’ the company maintains steady inventory levels while maintaining delivery schedules. SYSPRO MRP also facilitates “lean” manufacturing at the Samuel Strapping steel plant via SYSPRO forecasting and the Advanced Planning and Scheduling system. The latter runs the forecasting figures through a model of the plant based on capacity constraints and inventory target levels, creating a demand scenario, which is then utilized by the Material Resource Planning (MRP) system. SYSPRO not only facilitates lean production, but also green practices. Data is accumulated on PCs on the shop floor and fed directly into SYSPRO ERP, eliminating all paper on the shop floor. All test results are entered electronically on the shop floor, feeding the quality specs and steel characteristics via bar codes directly into SYSPRO -- eliminating the tons of paper that would be employed to accumulate specs. “We used to create a paper trail at our plants. Now, using bar coding, we no long have paper following each job—it’s all electronic. The data is accumulated on PCs on the shop floor and fed directly into SYSPRO ERP, eliminating all paper on the shop floor. We also input all test results electronically on the shop floor, feeding the quality specs and steel characteristics via bar codes directly into the SYSPRO UniPoint quality system. We’ve eliminated the tons of paper that would follow every single one of our master coils accumulating the specs.”— Patrick Hoffmann, Director of Inventory and Operational Analysis, Samuel Strapping Systems

 

Enabler: TAKE Solutions
Chennai, India, www.takesolutions.com)
Customer: Midmark Corp.
The Project: To enable end-to-end agility, control and visibility of the pick confirm process via extending the ERP with wireless mobile data collection, workflow and printing; and reduce out-of the-box failures caused by pre-mobility process.

 

Enabler: Terra Technology
(Norwalk, Conn., www.terratechnology.com)
Customer: Large consumer products company
The Project: The objective was to become more demand-driven by analyzing POS and retailer data to forecast demand based on consumer behavior. In moving from a traditional manufacturing-focused supply chain orientation to a demand-driven strategy, the consumer products company recognized the explosion in point of sale (POS) data and information about customer activities from major retailers. As a result of their ability to tap into this POS activity-through implementation of Terra Technology's Multi-Enterprise Demand Sensing solution-they can now address such questions as 'How are consumers reacting?' Following, they can then make sure that they have stock in position to support that behavior.
Solutions/Services: Multi-Enterprise Demand Sensing
Business Impact: They have seen a significant reduction in rush shipment activity and the need to ship products from the west coast to the east coast upon immediate demand. By using downstream data to create more accurate forecasts, they better handle variables and generally have stock in the right place. In addition, they significantly cut their inventory levels while improving customer service.

 

Enabler: The Shelby Group
Customer: Fortune 500 waste management company
The Project: Source-to-Pay implementation

 

Enabler: Tidal Seven LLC
(Eden Prairie, Minn., www.tidalseven.com
Customer: Fortune 500 shipper
The Project: To manage the private and dedicated capacity of a Fortune 500 company, building collaborative partnerships to reduce empty miles.

 

Enabler: ToolsGroup
Customer: consumer goods company
The Project: trade promotion forecasting

 

TradeCardEnabler: TradeCard
(New York, N.Y., www.tradecard.com)
Customer: Small intimate apparel company
The Project: a small intimate apparel provider was rapidly growing and sought a standardized system to automate and streamline sourcing transactions while offering flexibility to support new business.
Solutions/Services: TradeCard Platform cloud-based solution which connects retailers and brands to suppliers and service providers on a network of 10,000 organizations in 78 countries.
Business Impact: TradeCard provided an automated sourcing environment to eliminate paper and manual tasks; automated payables, facilitated open account transactions; leveraged cloud system to triple sourcing volume without adding staff; automated and improved capture of chargebacks; deployed early payment discount program to help suppliers keep up with growth.

 

Enabler: TradeStone Software
(Gloucester, Mass., www.tradestonesoftware.com)
Customer: Wholesaler/retailer with four divisions
The Project: centralize sourcing across the four company divisions and move to a common system to manage both the process and data.

 

Enabler: Transplace
(Dallas, www.transplace.com)
Customer: Huhtamaki
The Project— Logistics/Transportation: Huhtamaki needed to maintain low shipping rates, improve visibility and be better prepared to deal with volatile global transitions in the marketplace. Transplace developed a customer-centric technology platform to support its growing shipping needs.
Solutions/Services: Global TMS ocean import/export air import/ export expedited freight trans-load services full container load less-than-container load country-specific handling
Business Impact: The Transplace Global Transportation Management System (TMS) allows Huhtamaki to take control of its freight transportation with a single, comprehensive solution; gain real-time visibility into both inbound and outbound shipments; and merge its information and logistics components.
“Working with Transplace allowed Huhtamaki to advance its Lean Six Sigma process outputs. By consolidating operations and realizing efficiencies, we improved the strategic framework for our logistics.”—Scott Stuckenschneider, Vice President of Supply Chain, Huhtamaki

 

Enabler: Treya Partners
(Westlake Village, Calif., www.treyapartners.com)
Customer: $3B North American retailer
The Project: To help client implement a new indirect procurement organization with responsibility for managing over $200M of indirect and capital expenditures.

 

Enabler: UNIT4 CODA
(Manchester, N.H., www.unit4coda.com)
Customer: Global brand-name retailer
The Project: To streamline and standardize accounting processes across all countries, stores and finance departments to handle rapid expansion and support business goals.

 

Enabler: Upside Software Inc.
(Alberta, Canada, www.upsidesoft.com)
Customer: Global communications and Information Technology company
The Project: To implement a new contract management system to address necessary functionality requirements to meet growing business demands.

 

U.S. BankEnabler: U.S. Bank
(Minneapolis, www.usbpayment.com)
Customer: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
The Project: Save money, enhance efficiency, reduce paperwork and generate some revenue. When UCLA had its budget slashed a staggering $500 million, budget officers set out searching for places to cut. One place they looked at was their accounts payable. UCLA pays over half a million invoices a year; until recently about four-fifths got paid by check. What was needed was an easy-to-use electronic payment method for big ticket expenditures that made up the bulk of their spend.
Solutions/Services: U.S. Bank Access Online Payment Plus (electronic invoice paying)
Business Impact: Close to 200 vendors are signed up. University officials estimate their yearly volume of Payment Plus payments could soon exceed U.S. $54 million a year, which adds up to a sizable revenue share check from their bank partner.

 

Enabler: Volt Consulting Group
(New York, N.Y., www.voltconsultinggroup.com)
Customer: Six Fortune 500 companies
The Project: Analyze labor rate data using sophisticated new tools/practices to arrive at data driven decision support on human capital purchasing.

 

Enabler: W&H Systems Inc.
(Carlstadt, N.J., www.whsystems.com)
Customer: Oriental Trading Company
The Project:  LaVista, Neb.-based 750,000 square foot distribution center transitioned from a paper-driven organization to a highly automated facility that manages $30,000 SKUs and handles over 400,000 items daily.

 

Enabler: Zionex Inc.
Customer: High-tech electronics company
The Project: global supply chain planning

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