planning software Archives

Pharma firm Selects Kinaxis to Cure Supply Chain Headaches

Posted on 28 May, 2024 by Keith McKinley

Kinaxis® Inc. (TSX: KXS), a global leader in end-to-end supply chain orchestration, has announced that Servier, a global independent pharmaceutical group, has selected Kinaxis to help revolutionize its supply chain planning capabilities with a view to accelerating time to market for its portfolio of life-saving drugs.

One of the world’s preeminent pharmaceutical companies, Servier has nearly 22,000 employees and a presence in 150 countries, with medicines targeting cancers, diabetes, as well as immune-inflammatory, neuropsychiatric, cardiovascular, and venous diseases. The company’s unique status as a laboratory governed by a non-profit foundation sees it invest upwards of 20% of its revenue each year from brand-name medicines into research and development, a strategy that has enabled it to accelerate research to discover new treatments faster for the benefits of patients.

As part of the deployment, Kinaxis will enable Servier to plan more effectively and gain end-to-end visibility of its supply chain; a vital requirement as competing jurisdictional regulations, demand variability, and increased global disruptions play havoc with the pharmaceutical industry’s mission to deliver high-quality products to customers at the lowest cost and with the shortest lead time.

“One of Servier’s principal ambitions is to be a resilient, growing, and sustainable company that’s focused on a few areas where we can make the greatest impact globally for patients,” said Xavier Morelon, head of supply chain at Servier. “To do so, we know we should rely on best-in-class partners like Kinaxis which are so critical to helping us become more agile and ensuring our supply chain can enable us to hit this lofty objective.”

Supply Chain Headaches

“From making sure patients have the right medications when they need them to keeping up with regulations, expiry dates, and patent cliffs, no industry can compare to life sciences when it comes to complexity,” said Fabienne Cetre, regional vice president, Central Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Belgium) at Kinaxis. “We’re thrilled to be working with Servier and are confident our deep industry expertise will enable everyone from their C-suite to their planners and analysts to see more clearly through these challenges so that they can focus on what they do best – delivering products to help people live longer and healthier lives.”

With the addition of France’s second largest pharmaceutical company to its growing customer base, Kinaxis continues to cement its leadership within the life sciences industry, which provides the brand-name and generic medicines that countless patients rely on.

Kinaxis’ AI-powered software allows companies to orchestrate their supply chain network end to end, from strategic planning to last-mile delivery. Kinaxis’ technology helps companies that supply the agricultural industry with 40% of the world’s tractors, that keep more than 110 billion teeth clean each year, and that ensures more than 35 million pets are fed nutritious meals each year.

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Manhattan Redefines Supply Chain Planning

Posted on 16 May, 202429 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Manhattan Associates has announced Manhattan Active® Supply Chain Planning (SCP), the industry’s first unified business planning platform that enables bi-directional collaboration between supply chain planning and execution systems. This groundbreaking solution enables planners to evaluate all operational factors in real-time, and align all systems, inventory, and resources to a common business objective, such as reducing total landed cost or increasing speed to market.

With traditional supply chain planning, inventory, labour, transportation, and warehouse operations are planned and optimised in isolation. This approach yields fragmented strategies that often conflict with one another and lack feedback from the execution team.

Manhattan Active Supply Chain Planning is the first and only solution unified with supply chain execution to eliminate systemic and operational silos, unlocking enterprise-wide optimisation for the entire inventory assortment and all the resources required to flow it through the supply chain. From inventory and labour to distribution and transportation, all elements are synchronised and harmonised in real-time, seamlessly united under a single plan.

“The ability to coordinate with solutions like OMS, WMS and TMS is a gamechanger. Now inventory, labour, and transportation planning can be considered together to ensure the optimal outcome to benefit the organisation as a whole,” said Scott Fenwick, senior director of Product Management for Manhattan Associates. “It simultaneously considers all these factors to smooth operations and deliver exceptional experiences at the lowest cost.”

Supply Chain Planning

Manhattan Active Supply Chain Planning harnesses the power of AI to combine external data sources with internal patterns to produce more accurate and actionable demand forecasts. This innovative solution is capable of ingesting and rapidly processing vast amounts of syndicated data from external sources, such as influencer activity, industry-specific data sources, and localised data, all of which can influence and shape demand.

Manhattan Active Supply Chain Planning completes the company’s vision of a truly unified supply chain commerce ecosystem. Manhattan is uniquely capable of delivering this fully unified solution because of its technology platform architecture. All Manhattan Active solutions are cloud-native, microservice API applications, engineered to be extensible and evergreen, with regular updates every 90 days. Built on the proven Manhattan Active Platform, Manhattan Active SCP is the most modern, scalable, and adaptable supply chain planning solution on the market.

Manhattan Associates Transforms Retail Returns

Planning for Supply Chain Threats

Posted on 2 May, 2024 by Keith McKinley

New data from intelligent planning technology provider Board International, reveals that senior supply chain professionals are placing a renewed focus on scenario planning in response to a volatile business landscape. According to the new Board 2024 Global Planning Survey, 73% (Global: 71%) of decision-makers are taking planning more seriously, with the Ukraine War, cost-of-living crisis, and ongoing supply chain disruptions acting as key catalysts.

Cyberattacks (Supply Chain Professionals (SCP): 36%; Global: 34%), labor shortages (SCP: 35%; Global: 36%), blocking of key supply chain channels (SCP: 27%; Global: 30%) and fluctuating oil prices (SCP: 34%; Global: 29%) top the list of key business threats that decision makers are currently making plans for.

Despite an emphasis on planning to help navigate this disruption, many supply chain professionals continue to face challenges planning effectively. The survey reveals signs of planning fatigue within many companies, highlighting a 14% decrease in how seriously companies are taking planning compared to last year. Similarly, just over three quarters (SCP: 77%; Global:73%) of supply chain decision makers admit their organization makes planning decisions based on assumptions. Together, these findings suggest that many supply chain professionals are struggling to implement data-driven decision-making. Nearly a third (SCP: 29%; Global: 29%) of respondents report that ineffective planning has impacted profitability, productivity and the ability to drive innovations, new products or services.

From Scanning to Planning

The survey reveals that too many companies are simply scanning for potential crises rather than actively preparing for them. For example, Board found that 43% (Global: 39%) of respondents are discussing rising tensions between China and Taiwan but only 29% (Global: 27%) are actively scenario planning for an escalation in the region. The lesson from Gray Rhino and Black Swan events like the conflict in Gaza or the war in Ukraine highlight how important it is for organizations to anticipate and mitigate the risk of geopolitical, economic and social disruptions, however unlikely they may seem. The survey also found that 72% (Global: 70%) of supply chain professionals usually disregard the most extreme scenarios when planning, suggesting most companies are leaving themselves open to risk should the unexpected happen. And often because it’s too difficult or time consuming for them to do so.

“Industry leaders face immense pressure to navigate a complex and unpredictable business environment. The need to shift from conversation to action around scenario planning has never been more important,” said Jeff Casale, Board’s CEO. “But in far too many cases, organizations remain limited by legacy tools that are prone to errors and siloed data – leaving them vulnerable to costly mistakes and outdated insights. To better compete, they need to be proactive about anticipating disruptive events, modelling calculated scenarios and aligning strategic, financial and operational plans.”

Supply Chain Cyber Security Threats

Adopting an agile and integrated approach to planning is critical for companies to drive increased flexibility, streamlined operations, faster time-to-market and improved collaboration and resource allocation in a rapidly evolving market landscape. However, the survey identifies a concerning agile planning gap that highlights a significant disconnect between aspirations and reality. The survey found that 76% (Global: 73%) of respondents globally believe their organization is equipped for agile planning, but only 14% (Global: 17%) have the right processes and technologies in place to make this a reality.

For companies looking to close this gap, the survey found three key barriers: poor data quality and governance (SCP: 46%; Global: 46%), ineffective processes based on largely manual activities (SCP: 43%; Global: 48%) and a lack of modern tools and technologies (SCP: 42%; Global: 43%).

Underpinning each of these barriers is an overreliance on static spreadsheets. The survey found 57% (Global: 55%) of supply chain planners globally use spreadsheets, like Excel, for at least half of their business planning – a source of potential risk due to limitations caused by manual data entry and lack of real-time data integration. The survey also found that 72% (Global: 71%) of companies fail to consider enough potential future scenarios when planning, which can also leave them unprepared for unexpected events.

Successful Agile Planning

Organizations are looking to AI to overhaul their approach as they shift towards data-driven, agile planning. 41% (Global: 46%) of respondents are exploring machine learning to improve decision-making, while 38% (Global: 44%) are looking to AI-powered business intelligence tools. A third (SCP: 33%; Global: 34%) of respondents also plan to adopt generative AI tools to enhance their decision-making process.

“By embracing intelligent planning tools and agile planning processes, companies can analyze internal and external data to plan for a range of eventualities, to drive more informed, proactive decision-making and improved business outcomes,” added Casale. “Over the next decade, companies that don’t shift to running their business on a fully integrated planning system will be facing an uphill battle.”

Data Everywhere: AI in Logistics

Visualisation adds Value to Warehouse Scenario Planning

Posted on 24 October, 202329 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Intralogistics operations could better manage unexpected changes in the warehouse by using visualisation and simulation tools for scenario planning, suggests Yale Lift Truck Technologies.

“The warehousing industry is constantly changing,” says Ron Farr, Director, Warehouse Sales – EMEA for Yale Lift Truck Technologies. “Businesses in industries such as retail, e-commerce, 3PL, food, and beverage, not only need to specify a fleet that works for them right now, but also consider how that equipment might adapt with them in the future.”

Efficient flowthrough and efficient use of site storage are vital in intralogistics. So, to support warehouse applications, data driven simulation and up to date visualisation solutions are available now from Yale and its global network of independent local dealers.

The Yale Warehouse Simulator is bespoke software that allows us to design different warehouse layout options based on real world situations. It uses complex mathematical calculations to provide statistics on fleet performance and efficiency, based on various scenarios.

“Growth within a business is a positive change, but one consequence is that it can lead to inefficient and poorly thought-out materials handling operations,” Ron explains. “If the economy then changes for the worse, how can a business know what to change to become more productive in the warehouse? Or how it may impact other parts of the business. It helps to look at the layout in detail to understand how high they need to go, where to put racking, what configuration of trucks is right, and whether they need a VNA or a Reach Truck, for example.”

The Yale Warehouse Simulator allows experimentation with different layouts, equipment configurations and timings, in 2D and 3D, with data analysis. This can support scenario planning to help businesses to be as prepared as possible for unknown warehouse changes.

A simulation model is created based on the real world, including detail such as which different trucks could be used to perform certain tasks, maintenance rates, how various parts of the warehouse perform, numbers of pallets, possible areas of congestion in staging lanes, or numbers of lorries used in order to optimise flow and productivity. This enables Yale and its dealers to advise the optimum mix of Yale equipment to meet the warehouse’s needs.

“The issue with spreadsheet techniques and some simulation software is that it’s inflexible, and often doesn’t make calculations based around interaction between equipment, such as traffic.” Ron Farr adds. “What’s great about the Yale Warehouse Simulator is that it allows us to explore different options and help businesses move into the future with confidence.”

“Nothing is static in the intralogistics industry, and that impacts how you arrange and organise your warehouse,” explains Ron. “These solutions from Yale help operations to better plan for now, and for the future, by exploring different scenarios. It’s just one of the ways that Yale and our dealers can be there to closely support businesses as warehouses evolve.”

Supply Chain Headaches

Supply Chain Planning

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