"Our goal is to make relevant supply chain information available to business decision makers across the enterprise, which requires flexible supply chain software with built-in performance management capabilities," said Logility president Mike Edenfield.
"Logility Voyager Solutions 7.5 feature robust, collaborative web-based functionality to help companies more easily support a demand-driven supply chain, one focused on improving productivity, reducing costs and increasing perfect orders."
More and more food suppliers and manufacturers are taking an integrated approach to supply chain management. This is a vital consideration, given that many are under intense pressure to realise better cost margins.
A recent report carried out by Deloitte Research for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), suggest that rather than taking a holistic, global view of their businesses, most global manufacturers focus on addressing the individual pieces of their far-flung global network - the complex web of suppliers, production facilities, distribution centres and customers - that comprise their supply chain.
This piecemeal approach means that more than 80 per cent of them fail to capture the full returns of their global investments.
But for those that install comprehensive supply chain software, the benefits are potentially huge. Key Logility customers include Huhtamaki UK, McCain Foods, Mill's Pride and Pernod Ricard.
Enhanced performance management capabilities are embedded across all areas of Logility Voyager Solutions. Additional functionality includes demand chain planning software, which spans demand management, life cycle and inventory planning to enable companies to use key performance indicators (KPIs) to better manage supply chain performance and share forecasts.
In addition, web-based forecast management provides increased flexibility to display dynamic, multidimensional views for aggregating and disaggregating items such as multiple planning hierarchies and simultaneous views, at both detail and summary levels, to interactively analyse demand plans for single items or groups of items. Enhanced forecast modelling capabilities offer a single panel display of all pertinent forecast information to help users easily run multiple simulations and conduct flexible what-if scenario comparisons.
Supply chain planning optimises material, inventory, production, sourcing and distribution assets. Enhancements include the streamlined release of purchasing, manufacturing and transfer orders via the web; load building capabilities for unconstrained replenishment; as well as long-range constraint-based plans for daily, weekly and monthly modes.
Load optimisation helps fill shipments from an initial supply plan with automated rules for increasing/decreasing item quantities in a shipment and pool multiple shipping and/or receiving points to maximise full container shipments. Shelf life software enables optimisation to allocate inventory to meet customer-specific shelf life requirements and reduce the waste of perishable or distressed inventory.
Shipment execution offers expanded track and trace support for multi-segment, multi-modal shipments. Built-in RFID support for shipping/receiving compliance at the carton, pallet, container and item level helps customers implement or upgrade warehouse operations quickly; limits custom integration; delivers more immediate benefits; and lays the foundation for future expansion of RFID to supply chain planning applications.
Logility Voyager Solutions 7.5 will be commercially available in summer 2005.