Three key enablers for continuous, touchless planning capability

Developing an autonomous planning capability and self-driving supply-value network is an important long-term goal for every consumer-products organization. With it comes the opportunity to improve organizational efficiency and plan effectiveness, as well as the ability to better manage disruption and risk. Taken together, these improved capabilities help drive better outcomes for both the supply chain and the wider business.

We define a next-generation continuous, touchless planning system as a self-governing, self-optimizing process that leverages intelligent automation applications and big data to increase the speed at which plans are created, reviewed, and adapted in response to real-time changes in demand and supply. To enable this, organizations must establish several underlying capabilities.

Our recent whitepaper, Continuous, touchless planning: How consumer-products organizations can enable a modern supply-value network through next-generation demand and supply-planning capabilities, identifies the following three areas as critical to the development, deployment, and ongoing operation of a continuous, touchless planning system:

1. Data integrity
   Enabling a touchless-planning capability requires the organization create and standardize robust data collection and analysis capabilities that will inform the planning system. Many organizations need to reconsider their technological capabilities as well as organizational processes, structure, and workforce skills, in order to enable this function.
2. Digital operations
   As part of this process, some organization may need to digitize operations, equipping the entirety of the supplier ecosystem with sensors that provide near real-time feedback to the planning systems on various issues, such as production capacity, material availability, in-store stock outs, and more.
3. Concurrent planning
   Finally, the organization will need to enable concurrent planning systems, linking demand and supply systems into a single view and bringing these functions together within the organization. The demand planning and supply rules will need to be defined and mapped into these systems, thus automating recurring or routine tasks according to program settings and scenario planning.

While developing a continuous, touchless planning capability is by no means simple, it holds extraordinary promise for consumer-products organizations. Our recent whitepaper provides more information about how businesses can begin developing and deploying a continuous, touchless planning capability – and building a more agile and resilient business in the process.

Download Intelligent supply networks: Continuous touchless planning

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Author details:

Peter Tacken is a Managing Consultant in Supply Chain Management at Capgemini Invent and has strong experience in supply-chain planning, operations, and value-driven transformations in heavily regulated industries. With a strong focus on innovation, he helps clients improve business operations and increase agility and resilience across the business. He can be reached at peter.tacken@capgemini.com.