Automotive - Planning

Supply Chain Design and Total Landed Cost Sourcing

This solution is designed to help automotive companies optimize the structure of the automotive supply chain, to optimize the positioning and size of inventory buffers throughout the supply chain, and to make decisions based on total landed cost.

Supply Chain Network Design and Optimization enables planners to construct and manipulate “what-if” scenarios. It can provide a means to quickly represent complexities and interdependencies of the entire supply chain, and assess the merits of strategic alternatives.

Inventory Optimization helps planners analyze and segment demand, evaluate the supply base, and factor in business goals to design detailed inventory configurations that strike an optimized balance between cost and service. This solution recognizes both supply and demand variability, and can be used to engineer multi-echelon postponement strategies.

Demand and Pricing Optimization

Automotive companies are integrating demand-oriented business functions into a flexible, responsive process called continuous demand management.

Continuous demand management involves dealer demand collaboration; demand sensing analytics and notifications; incentives management and optimization; as well as closing the loop between OEM sales volume and option forecasting. These demand management functions are being integrated with various supply management functions into a dynamic sales, inventory, and operations (SIOP) process.

i2 has designed solutions for:

Sales Volume and Option Forecasting is designed to create volume forecasts by segment, model, and series for various countries and regions. Key options may also be forecasted at this level.

Demand Collaboration is designed to enable an OEM sales organization to collaborate with regions and dealers to reach consensus on sales volume forecasts and product commitments. The collaboration process includes the establishing a volume forecast, agreeing to that forecast, and committing to specific vehicles.

Incentive Management and Optimization is designed to establish the optimal size and allocation of the incentive budget, as well as to distribute the budget. The solution can collaborate with sales forecasting.

Demand Sensing Analytics and Alarming is designed to incorporate what a customer really wants—demand sensing inputs—into the forecasting process. The solution can enable organizations to understand where actual orders are deviating from demand forecasts—and to determine corrective actions.

Supply, Distribution, and Factory Optimization

Automotive companies are integrating various supply-oriented business functions into a flexible and responsive process called continuous supply management. This involves closing the loop across OEM sales volume and option master planning; model-option and material forecasting; as well as master scheduling and sequencing.

These supply management functions can be integrated with continuous demand management processes into a dynamic sales, inventory, and operations (SIOP) process.

Continuous supply management can facilitate collaboration among customer order fulfillment functions to enable dynamic scheduling and order promising.

i2 has designed solutions for:

Volume and Option Master Planning enables the creation of optimized production, materials, inventory, transportation, and distribution plans, as well as the creation of sales allocations. These plans are based on inputs from sales forecasts, business plans, and financial plans. Included in this planning process is an integrated, consensus-based process for sales, marketing, production control, production, materials, and finance stakeholders within a company. Master planning, as well as sales, inventory, and operations planning (SIOP) is enabled though rapid “what-if” analysis and scenario management support.

Model-Option/Material Forecasting enables the forecasting of vehicle options to ensure material plan accuracy for supporting assembly. This process is distinct from sales volume and option forecasting. It can enable the creation of an integrated business process workflow based on sales volume and option forecasting, as well as model-option forecasting. Further, it is designed to allow the forecasting to be performed by different organizations.

Master Scheduling and Sequencing is a process designed to create optimized schedules and sequences for assembly that consider detailed capacity, product mix, labor, and transportation constraints. Master scheduling has the capability to slot vehicles into weekly buckets to satisfy production plan requirements, while considering production constraints. Sequencing then places the vehicles into an assembly lineup.

Powertrain Planning and Scheduling is designed to manage customer assembly and in-transit buffers, create sequences for engine assembly, and provide material schedules for feeding assembly. The solution can enable operations to maintain service levels to assembly plants, while considering multiple ship-to locations, multiple products on shared resources, and complex manufacturing feeding and supply operations.

Stamping Planning and Scheduling creates an optimal multi-month cycle plan, an optimized weekly die-set schedule for stamping, and the integration of execution schedules. The i2 solution for stamping planning and scheduling has been designed to meet the requirements of cycle planning and multi-stage scheduling, which are common in stamping facilities.

Sales and Operations Planning

i2 offers its S&OP Diagnostic Service to help companies analyze S&OP process and system capabilities and S&OP metrics, using i2’s Diagnostic Questionnaire. Root-cause analysis is then performed on the identified problems. The resulting recommendations can include business process improvements as well as the deployment of i2 Sales and Operations Planning. It can encompass solutions for demand and pricing optimization, supply, distribution and factory optimization, visibility, and execution.

Sourcing Strategy and Planning

Strategic sourcing initiatives are designed to minimize the total cost of ownership of materials, not just reduce prices or process costs. The goal of these efforts is to optimize the sourcing strategy by category or commodity, through balancing the need for cost reductions with risk factors. In addition, supplier relationships must be managed to ensure quality and performance.

In complex manufacturing environments there is a need to manage large systems and outsourced assemblies.

Further, with a shift toward globalization, there is a need to evaluate alternative global sourcing decisions based on lead time, reliability, and logistics considerations.

i2 has designed solutions for:

Spend Analysis is designed to allow optimization of future sourcing decisions and cost reductions by commodity or supplier. Further, the solution can support the customized views and multi-attribute presentation of data by supplier, part, time, or organization.

Total Landed Cost Sourcing helps procurement, logistics, finance, and supply chain design work together to make optimal parts sourcing decisions that take into account not only part piece cost but also additional supply chain factors such as inbound lead times and associated variability, supply chain risk and protection of supply, logistics costs and risk, and finally, inventory costs.

Supplier Performance Management is designed to measure the supply base's current performance, as well as track that performance against customer-defined goals to support new sourcing decisions. The solution can enable the creation of a standard set of metrics and normalization methods, ensure that data is collected, and create supplier performance scorecards.

Reuse and Product Cost Management

Discrete manufacturers and suppliers of complex products face intense pressure to reduce their cost structures, while providing better products to their customers.

Reuse management has become an important initiative within most organizations. However, organizations still view it as an engineering-led initiative, even though one of the key drivers for reuse is to support a lean cost structure for products.

Reuse management encompasses the reuse of designs, as well as knowledge of process benchmarks, supplier capabilities, and the cost of parts.

i2 has designed solutions for:

Reuse Catalog Management combines the ability to classify and manage part and supplier information with the ability to search and compare parametric data for analysis.

Product Cost Analysis can enable automotive OEMs and large tier-one suppliers to develop and execute cost reduction initiatives to reduce direct material spend.

Design for Supply can enable product design to incorporate an understanding of supply chain constraints. This requires the ability to provide enterprise visibility, as well as the ability to represent these constraints as attributes that can be filtered and analyzed during the design phase. An expanded catalog solution can incorporate these attributes within the same framework for engineers to gain rapid visibility into this information.