Mar 30, 2020
An Unprecedented Challenge for Industry
The current health crisis has already disrupted the global supply chain in many ways. Manufacturing warehouses are no longer able to maintain safety stock levels, new orders cannot be fulfilled, contracts are on the verge of being broken and many production plants around the world are shutting down. But in some industries, including Medical Device Manufacturing, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and Food & Beverage, manufacturers are not only being required to continue to produce, but are being stretched far beyond their limits. Demand for their goods has grown exponentially in an extremely short amount of time, and they are struggling to meet it.
This is the challenge faced by one of our long-term customers, whose different digital transformation initiatives we have supported over the years for both their U.S. and European divisions. This Food & Beverage leader is a global manufacturer of high-quality consumer food products including fresh pasta and pasta sauces. Due to the recent health epidemic outbreak in the U.S., the demand for our customer's food products has more than doubled in a single week, while their production capacity has remained unchanged.
A Strategic Partnership in Digital Manufacturing
A few years ago, when the customer's business was expanding rapidly in the North American market, maintaining an efficient Production Planning & Scheduling process was becoming increasingly difficult for them to manage manually. Engineering Industries eXcellence's team delivered an integrated technology solution covering all their inventory planning, factory scheduling and resource and supply planning processes. As a result, we helped the customer streamline, synchronize and optimize production planning and scheduling in their U.S. manufacturing plant and across their enterprise to support a flourishing business.
New Solutions to Manage Demand, Stock and Capacity Planning
Over the years, we have continued to work with this customer as their strategic partner and advisor for Digital Manufacturing. A few weeks ago, the customer reached out to Engineering Industries eXcellence and asked us to help them better leverage the digital tools we implemented to quickly address the new challenges they were experiencing during this difficult and unpredictable period.
Thanks to the flexibility and scalability of the solutions delivered and our broad expertise in expanding their functionalities, our team of experts rose to this critical occasion in just a matter of days. In the face of incredible demand, our customer will now be able to use their manufacturing capacity planning tools to evaluate which products to prioritize, which products to produce and which products not to produce. The customer will also be able to accurately project their inventory stock levels in order to maximize customer satisfaction and production capacity. We are proud to partner with this customer and all our manufacturing customers long-term in order to help them navigate and conquer the continuously changing realities of the global marketplace.
Advanced Planning and Scheduling for Flexible Manufacturing
Engineering Industries eXcellence leverages leading software tools such as Siemens Opcenter Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) and sedApta Software Suite to help manufacturers understand what is happening and adjust their operations quickly and intelligently when facing unexpected changes in demand or supply. Our capacity planning tools can help you evaluate which products to prioritize, which products to produce and which not to produce. You can accurately project inventory levels to ensure maximum customer satisfaction and throughput.
