Track: Systems Engineering

Abstract

Manufacturers often use key performance indicators (KPIs) that are in conflict with each other. For example, to meet sales targets, sales teams tend to focus on fast-selling rather than slow-moving items. However, this requires production flexibility to respond to demand fluctuations, which negatively impacts the KPIs of the production or SCM departments. This report describes a best practice to optimize KPIs by improving the supply-demand planning process. We propose a communication-based supply-demand planning strategy for the supply-demand planning process. This strategy focuses on communication among departments as they establish their production, sales, and inventory (PSI) plans in order to prevent the occurrence of conflicts. Further, we developed the PSI-Cockpit visualization system to support communication-based supply-demand planning. The system’s features support communication between departments and allow users to establish plans to optimize KPIs.