Revolutionizing Inventory Management in Marine Electronics with IoT
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Inventory Management Systems
- Functional Applications - Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
Applicable Industries
- Electronics
- Marine & Shipping
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Picking, Sorting & Positioning
About The Customer
The customer is a specialist marine electronics company that provides navigation, marine instruments, and fish finding equipment to both the recreational and commercial marine sectors. The company was struggling with siloed processes, lack of end-to-end visibility, and inefficient inventory management. They were unable to respond effectively to changing market dynamics and frequently experienced both inventory excess and shortages. The company's demand forecasting, especially for new product introductions, was also inaccurate.
The Challenge
The marine electronics company, a specialist in providing navigation, marine instruments, and fish finding equipment to both the recreational and commercial marine sectors, was facing significant challenges in its supply chain management. The company was unable to integrate commercial, supply, and demand planning due to many siloed processes, leading to lost sales and excess inventory. The lack of end-to-end (E2E) visibility and the inability to respond to changing market dynamics further exacerbated the situation. The company was unable to create true E2E visibility across the supply chain due to a variety of disconnected planning systems operating in a siloed environment. Additionally, the company frequently experienced both inventory excess and shortages, with only 10% of the SKUs having healthy inventory across the network. The forecast accuracy for demand, especially in connection to new product introduction, was rather low.
The Solution
The company partnered with o9 to leverage their highly differentiated Enterprise Knowledge Graph to integrate various planning functions and regions across the organization. This reduced overall E2E planning cycles and increased visibility and efficiency. The company improved its inventory management significantly by implementing statistical and supply-based safety stock calculations with o9. Supply planning was streamlined across its distribution network, including the creation of purchase orders and transfer orders. The company’s demand forecasting capability increased significantly through the implementation of rule-based demand forecasting depending on the product type. There were further improvements in the highly collaborative consensus forecast process across functions and regions. Leveraging o9’s digital planning and decision-making platform, the company was able to improve forecast accuracy, inventory health, and planner productivity through the implementation of a best-in-class integrated demand and supply planning solution. In addition, o9’s Control Tower implemented at the company provides tracking of key operational KPIs as well as providing tactical execution recommendations in the short term thereby improving customer OTIFs.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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