Whitbread selects Manugistics to increase its supply chain accuracy

Citation

(1998), "Whitbread selects Manugistics to increase its supply chain accuracy", Assembly Automation, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.1998.03318aab.005

Whitbread selects Manugistics to increase its supply chain accuracy

Whitbread selects Manugistics to increase its supply chain accuracy

Manugistics, the supply chain management software vendor, has announced an order for its Constrained Production Planning (CPP) software from Whitbread Beer Company. The software will allow Whitbread to centralize the planning of the manufacturing process for its six sites, plus contract production sites for between a one week and 78 week horizon, and to make the most effective use of available manufacturing capacity, primary transport and warehousing.

CPP is a production planning software solution that helps companies dynamically manage multiple simultaneous constraints on production to optimize the use of manufacturing resources and lower production costs. Whitbread will take advantage of CPP's decision support tools and "what-if" simulation facilities to provide it with visibility into future product demand, thus guaranteeing that the right decisions are made during the generation of the manufacturing plan and the best use is made of manufacturing capacity. It will make full use of Manugistics suite of supply chain management solutions, incorporating distribution planning (DP), demand resource planning (DRP) and manufacturing planning (MP) into its strategic IT development plans.

"Manugistics provided us with a comprehensive solution for our supply chain management needs", commented Brian Hodge, supply chain planning manager at Whitbread. "With the forward visibility that CPP provides, in combination with its simulation capabilities, it will enable us to increase the speed and accuracy of our decisions. It will further improve our asset utilization and customer service levels while reducing our stocks and operational costs.

"Manugistics supply chain management solutions have allowed us to be more flexible than we envisaged through tight integration with PRISM and the ability to work effectively from any point on the wide area network, opening the door to radical restructuring of our planning processes and organization. The software problems and delays we initially encountered as a result of the immature status of CPP when we embarked on the project have been more than compensated for by the increased function delivered by the later versions", he added.

Organizations using CPP can consider a wide range of factors, such as manufacturing capacity, forecast production demand, production calendars, inventory throughput and transportation constraints. This provides managers with the ability to make proactive production decisions, identify potential stockout problems before they occur, and to meet demand peaks with minimal inventory build-up.

CPP is ideally suited to managing large volumes of stock-keeping units and their impact on the manufacturing resources at different levels of aggregation. CPP's powerful optimization processes and exception-driven approach will generate the optimal manufacturing plan to meet demand.

Whitbread Beer Company is one of the leading beer companies in the UK and is an established manufacturer of alcoholic beverages. It employs over 4,500 staff throughout its 22 major sites in the UK, including five breweries, one bottling site, three regional distribution centres, 12 satellite depots and the head office in Luton. Whitbread Beer Company offers 5,000 product lines to 40,000 customers and in 1996/97 delivered 1.5 million tons.

For more information contact:Brian Hodge, Supply Chain Planning Manager, Whitbread Beer Company. Tel: 01582 397456.