To enable real-time flows of information to support planning and execution it is important that the information systems of a company be aligned to the business strategy and integrated.  Supply Chain Systems and Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) complement each other.  ERP tends to focus more upon executing orders built upon traditional demand signals such as forecasts, customer orders, and re-order points.  Supply chain systems take a more macro and optimizing view.

The output of Supply Chain Systems can inform the execution settings within the ERP. Supply Chain systems facilitate:

• Sales and Operations Planning – The meshing of demand, supply, inventory, product introductions, product phase outs, etc.
• Demand Forecasting – Model based top down and bottom up Demand Forecasting with history, promotions, seasonality, and other factors
• Inventory – Focuses on granular optimization of inventory levels based on constraints such as capacity, required service levels, transportation costs, days coverage, etc. Quite often general planning settings drive elevated inventory levels. We’ve found that proper application of planning expertise can improve the fit to service level requirements while also reducing inventory levels.
• Supply – The food industry is unique in its supply management requirements. Raw material and/or grower contracts are placed far ahead of demand and available supply is impacted by weather and environmental factors.  Available supply and capacity must be rationed across projected demand based on optimization guidelines.

Quite frequently the above challenges are handled outside of the ERP system in non-integrated spreadsheets.  This isn’t a scalable solution and the lack of integration introduces delays as information is batch loaded into the ERP system.  As such the supply chain system and the ERP system should be integrated with the key master data integrated between the solutions as well.