Rochester, NY May 6, 2002 Xelus, a provider of solutions for the service and support chain, today took the wraps off the latest version of its global planning solution for equipment-related service, introducing new theater planning functionality.
Theaters are typically defined as geographic regions, but they may also be divisions, groups, operating companies or even product lines of a parent company.
Xelus said its theater planning capabilities allow a service organization to manage unique service requirements for different business units and geographies, while ensuring consistency with its global planning strategy.
For example, part lifecycles can be managed differently in separate theaters when demand is trending differently for the same part in those theaters. A product may be near its end of life in one theater as it is being introduced as a new product in another. This requires a global supply of service parts for the worldwide installed base, but any single part must allow for multiple forecast methods, leading indicators and service level policies to be applied to it to meet the needs of each theater.
Theater planning within a global solution lets companies more efficiently balance inventories and scarce resources across the entire service network, Xelus asserted. A master planner with global oversight can coordinate inventory requirements across theaters and manage selected stock keeping units directly, as appropriate. Theater planners can manage inventory within their domain, using real-time messaging to collaborate with each other and the master planner.
Exception messages generated by the system are routed directly to the person designated to take action, whether on a theater or global level. Decision support functions help planners to meet cost and service level objectives. For example, allocation cost optimization supports cost-effective transshipment of parts between theaters.
