IBM ILOG Inventory and Product Flow Analyst

Features and benefits

IBM ILOG Inventory and Product Flow Analyst handles both inbound/outbound and distribution-focused business models, allowing companies to answer a broad range of business questionsfrom determining the right inventory policies and strategic positioning of inventory, to the ongoing setting of safety stocks and inventory levels in operational environments.

Key Features

• Reduce inventory and improve service levels
• Decrease lead time and respond to your customers faster for increased market shares.
• Evaluate production and supplier sourcing decisions
  Evaluate sourcing strategies such as "off-shoring," and quickly see the inventory impact associated with these approaches.
• Identify the lowest cost providers and the downstream inventory costs associated with each supplier.
• Analyze postponement strategies
• Cut costs with a multi-echelon approach to inventory optimization, compared to a more "pull-based" approach.
• Understand the tradeoffs between make vs. buy decisions
• Perform quick analyses for clear views of the cost trade-offs between producing items in-house and sourcing them from an external supplier.
• Optimize the balance between shipping and warehousing costs and service level requirements for improved product delivery times. The ability to respond to customer pressures and competitive threats is key to revenue growth.
• Reap the rewards of significant cost savings by correctly identifying the correct SKUs to stock for a region, or which SKUs you should not stock at all.
• Determine the correct distribution flow for each SKU and customer regionevery timefor significant supply chain savings.
• Detailed reports on the costs associated with inventory can be analyzed and used as an input to optimization.
• Input material handling and transaction costs when calculating the lowest cost strategy for the network.
• Determine the levels of inventory needed to maintain your customer service goals, based on PFOs stocking and distribution strategies. What-if analysis-capabilities allow you to visualize how optimal stocking and distribution strategies change as customer service\changes.
• Get optimal solutions while trading off transportation, sourcing and inventory carrying costs.

Key Benefits

• Provides service-level optimization: techniques are available so users can optimize customer service levels throughout the supply chain.
• Uses a global, multi-echelon inventory optimization process: a global, multi-echelon inventory optimization process strategically positions raw materials, work in progress (WIP) and finished goods inventory across the supply chain to improve inventory turns, free working capital and increase cash flow.
• Complements ERP/APS Systems: Tightly integrated into your ERP and APS systems to complement your existing planning processes.
• Electricity consumption by building characteristics: building size, geographic region, number of workers, principal activity, year constructed, etc
• Lanes can be variable vs. fixed: Inventory and Product Flow Analyst will choose the optimal path for each SKU from a number of potential lanes (paths) throughout the finished goods (FG) distribution network.
• Offers different transportation modes: within each lane, different transportation options and their associated costs can be modeled and evaluated.
• Provides the ability to set different sourcing policies for local vs. distant suppliers: each potential supplier can be represented with different sourcing frequencies, quantity constraints, lead times, etc
• Provides the ability to set different inventory policies for regional vs. local distribution centers: Inventory and Product Flow Analyst allows different policies, such as minimum order quantities, receipt frequency, etc, depending on a customers supply location.
• Unique supplier sourcing costs: each potential supplier may have different associated production or logistics costs that may be incorporated into a model.
• Calculates the lowest cost strategy for each SKU and each region: determine the cost strategy for each SKU, creating the optimal strategy for the whole network.
• Provides total inventory strategies: can be integrated with IBM's other powerful supply chain modules to give you complete control over all your inventory optimization projects within the same easy-to-use framework.

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