Chicago February 5, 2003 Supply chain solution provider LogicTools this week released the latest updates to its supply chain network design products, upgrading the performance and ease-of-use of its applications, and also touting the benefits of using these design tools with the provider's inventory optimization solution.
LogicTools, founded in 1995 by David Simchi-Levi, a professor of systems engineering at MIT, offers supply chain software and services that support strategic, tactical and inventory planning decisions in a variety of industries.
The provider said the new versions of its LogicNet and LogicNet Plus solutions are designed to let companies incorporate increasingly sophisticated constraints when modeling their supply chains.
In addition, by combining these products with LogicTools' inventory optimization product, Inventory Analyst, customers can analyze the impact of various supply chain strategies on inventory and safety stock levels, according to the provider.
Inventory Analyst is a Web-based product intended to optimize inventory across a supply chain, taking into account the structure of the entire supply chain in making decisions on where to locate inventory. LogicTools said this type of solution, combined with network design, can provide companies with new ways to increase profitability by analyzing the supply chain structure and can help companies determine what part of their supply chains should be "make-to-order" versus "make-to-stock."
A variety of government agencies and small to midsize manufacturing companies use LogicTools' supply chain planning solutions to design and implement supply chains with complex challenges.
One LogicTools customer, DSC Logistics, a supply chain management company with a nationwide network, has recently used a combined network design and inventory optimization solution with one of their customers. After developing a variety of feasible supply chain network scenarios, DSC Logistics further analyzed the various scenarios by calculating the impact on inventory levels using Inventory Analyst and was able to determine inventory levels across the entire supply chain.
"The ability to utilize Inventory Analyst to determine the correct safety-stock levels after completing the network design analysis provided us with an excellent way to add additional value to our client by making our analysis more compelling and accurate," said John Kelly, senior manager of supply chain solutions at DSC Logistics. "Inventory Analyst was able to incorporate the LogicNet optimized network into the inventory calculations along with actual cycle time and case-fill information to produce accurate SKU-specific stocking requirements."
DSC Logistics has used LogicTools solutions over the last five years to provide strategic and tactical analysis to a number of its customers.
