Customer Order Fulfillment
Customer order fulfillment involves the allocation, configuration, pricing, capture, promising, tracking, and delivery of vehicles to dealers and customers. These processes work in conjunction with continuous supply management processes to provide accurate promises that can be reliably met by the OEM supply chain.
i2 has designed solutions for:
Allocation Management and Optimization "delivers" vehicles to certain markets and the vehicles are then allocated to the dealer level through sales organization strategies and rules. The dealer and customer ordering process is then executed within the envelope of these allocations.
Order Promising (ATP, LTO, CTO, BTO) is the process of taking a dealer or customer request for a vehicle configuration and providing an accurate delivery date for that request. Order promising may also provide alternatives and tradeoffs for the dealer or customer to consider. These tradeoffs may include delivery date, product option content, and price. The promise date is derived by directly scheduling the vehicle against inventory (locate-to-order), the sequence and master schedule (configure-to-order), and the production plan (build-to-order), within the OEM allocation policies.
Order Configuration and Pricing is the process of creating a valid vehicle configuration and pricing it out prior to promising and order capture. This process includes taking the dealer and/or customer through an easy way to configure and price their specific vehicle while keeping within sales and marketing configuration rules.
Order Management is the process of capturing configured orders and managing order status through delivery. This includes providing a single face to the customer and providing visibility of the order status throughout its life cycle across multiple enterprises.
Outbound Transportation Optimization is the process of managing and optimizing the outbound shipment of vehicles from assembly plants through consolidation hubs to dealers, customers, and ports of export.
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Service Parts Management
The Service Parts Management solution includes service budget optimization, parts forecasting and replenishment, as well as order promising and management. i2’s solution has been recognized with an Automotive News PACE award for its contribution to delivering value to automotive OEM service parts organizations.
i2 has designed solutions for:
Service Budget/Multi-Echelon Inventory Optimization is designed to provide the optimal inventory deployment strategy within a multi-echelon inventory network to maximize customer service while simultaneously considering supply chain and financial (budget) constraints. This includes demand and part segmentation to determine optimal stocking levels and locations.
Forecasting and Replenishment Planning incorporates the processes of forecasting service part demand across the multi-echelon inventory network. It also involves developing replenishment plans to ensure time-phase delivery of parts to maintain inventory levels to attain highest-possible service levels. Forecasting and replenishment for the service parts environment requires specialized forecasting techniques and replenishment capabilities that are scalable to millions of part-location combinations.
Order Promising and Execution encompasses the processes of capturing service parts replenishment orders and promising them using the most efficient stocking location and delivery techniques.
Service Parts Catalog Management can provide a technical infrastructure along to create, manage, and maintain the catalog.
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Material Flow Management
Material flow management for automotive OEMs encompasses the processes of planning, optimizing the inbound supply network, and linking to the design process, as well as managing supplier capacities and schedules. The process also includes the generation of material replenishment schedules for assembly and component facilities, as well as the execution of replenishments, including transportation and logistics.
i2 has designed solutions for:
Inbound Supply Network Optimization is designed to optimize the inbound supply chains—including internal and external capacities; inventory locations and quantities; logistics; containers; and part plans. This solution can consider different scenarios, including global versus local sourcing, to arrive at the least-landed cost approach for part supply.
Assembly and Component Replenishment Scheduling can enable the development of part replenishment schedules, while considering banking requirements, transportation routes, supplier allocations, and different replenishment strategies, including delivery to forecast (DELFOR), delivery to JIT (DELJIT), and delivery to push (PUS).
Supplier Schedule and Capacity Management is designed to validate, communicate, and collaborate on material requirements to satisfy assembly and component operations. Supplier schedule and capacity management can occur during the planning stages to ensure that plans are validated before beginning scheduling and execution.
Lean Supply Management is designed to efficiently manage the execution of inbound material replenishments. This solution can provide workflows to manage different replenishment strategies such as customer-scheduled shipment (CSS), pull-based replenishment (PBR), sequenced parts supply (SPS), and supplier-managed inventory (SMI). Further, lean supply management can provide the ability to process ASNs, receipts, and invoices, as well as manage events, and collaborate on exceptions.
Inbound Transportation Optimization is designed to create optimal inbound material shipments and loads to assembly and component facilities. Optimal plans are created considering supply chain constraints.
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Transportation Management and Supply Chain Visibility
Transportation management includes all of the workflows required to plan, optimize, and execute the automotive transport process.
Transportation Bid Collaboration enables intelligent procurement of transportation services.
Transportation Planning enables transport planners to plan and monitor freight across multiple modes, borders, and enterprises. It is designed to optimally plan the best way to ship high volumes of goods from one point to another, considering real-world constraints, sophisticated business rules, and advanced transportation strategies.
Transportation Manager is designed to support the activities necessary to execute, manage, and monitor the entire transportation execution life cycle. The solution builds loads that honor operational and physical constraints, leveraging sophisticated solving techniques to create optimized shipment plans.
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Sourcing Execution
To ensure that the strategy around specific commodities for long-term sourcing are executed optimally, an efficient process to manage operations steps must exist. The process must manage such items as:
- Bidding of items with suppliers
- Analyzing bids and awarding a contract based on constraints
- Executing the purchases as required by production operations in a timely manner
i2 has designed solutions for:
Supplier Negotiations and Bid Analysis for automotive companies can require more iterative negotiation types, such as request for information (RFI), request for proposal (RFP), and request for quotation (RFQ). The process also can require the ability to source entire multi-line-item BOMs simultaneously. In addition, integrating with change management and PDM systems is important as the engineers work closely with suppliers. Effective management of product costs requires the buyer to understand total cost and supply risk across multiple tiers of the supply chain when analyzing and awarding bids. Constraint-based bid and allocation optimization can enable automotive manufacturers to quickly analyze bids and perform multi-supplier allocation. i2’s solution can take into account total landed cost and specific business rules, such as minority requirements and supplier performance in deciding the allocation.
Procurement Execution is the final process of managing an order life cycle with the supply base. In many cases this may be a blanket purchase order. In addition there is the need to have a single face to the supplier around multiple capabilities such as forecasts, firm orders, ASNs, order changes, and receipts, as well as alerts and exceptions.
Consolidated Procurement is designed to help manage centralized procurement across multiple divisions or outsourced business units. It provides a single system of reference with links to back end systems, allowing local transaction processing. This solution provides global visibility and tracking of all purchasing activity.
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Demand Collaboration
Demand Collaboration is designed to enable an OEM sales organization to collaborate with regions and dealers to establish and reach consensus on sales volume forecasts and product commitments. The collaboration process includes establishing a volume forecast, agreeing to that forecast, and committing to specific vehicles.
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Collaborative Supply Execution
Supply Collaboration/Lean Replenishment is a web-based solution that enables forecast collaboration with suppliers, so that suppliers have a continuously updated forward view of item requirements. The item forecast transitions to firm schedule collaboration, where planned shipments are converted into Kanban or VMI transactions. This includes invoice capture, receipt confirmation, and handling of returns and rejects. Consolidated Procurement is designed to help manage centralized procurement across multiple divisions or outsourced business units. It provides a single system of reference with links to back-end systems, allowing local transaction processing. This solution provides global visibility and tracking of all purchasing activity.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Sales and Operations Planning
i2 offers its Sales and Operations 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.
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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.
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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.
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