Think Tanks connect you with peers navigating the same challenges and opportunities as you. ASUG will facilitate an interactive peer-to-peer exchange where solutions are shared for topics specific to your role and interest.
Treehouse did not have a global process to set the inventory targets, resulting in different planners setting different rules for the safety stock. This approach has resulted in either too much of inventory or inventory in the wrong location or shortages. To address this, Treehouse implemented IBP optimize the inventory across its entire network.
This session will focus on how Treehouse managed the change and leveraged the concept of Center of Excellence, coupled with Agile project management to roll out the IBP inventory optimization results across the different units of the organization. This topic will be of interest to our service and support networks: CoE, organizational change management, project management with cross promotion into supply chain management membership.
The format for Monday, Nov. 9 at 12 p.m. CT will include:
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Brief welcome and kickoff from ASUG
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Discussion led by ASUG members Vikram Vesukar from Treehouse Foods and Ajay Agrawal from SCM Connections
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The discussion will focus on:
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Building of an organization to support change management and rollout of the IBP solution
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Key factors to consider while designing the IBP system to ease in the transition and change management, including key figures, attributes, and reporting to enable the stakeholders to review the results and do a deep-dive analysis and comparison with existing metrics
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Using Agile project management methodology including weekly beta build demos for user community to showcase functionality
Gain visibility into the challenges and successes other SAP customers are experiencing, and acquire new ideas for real-world solutions.
If you are experiencing challenges and would like to lead your own case study, fill out the survey here.
Think Tank Insights:
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Important to involve your key players on the project team to avoid roadblocks and hold ups down the road. This is vital to save time, effort, avoid hurdles, and ensure success for your internal project
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Make sure people are embracing the tool and the output. Utilize a combination of technical players/leaders and business leaders within your organization as a proactive approach. Do not wait to utilize this strategy later in a project, you should be doing this on the front end to fully understand the needs of each department rather than assuming their desires and requirements.
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Also have a regular cadence with your leadership AFTER their buy in. Since this was a sophisticated piece of technology, they need frequent updates on the benefits of the tool. Try having bi-weekly meetings with the team and the planners to make sure you don’t overwhelm the users with the complexities of the tools, but to help them be comfortable with the tool once its ready to use.
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From a change management standpoint, this was always a focal part of the project and the solution design team worked closely with the Change Management team and training team to devise the mitigation strategies.
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Change Management
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This plays a crucial role when implementing an enterprise wide solution, especially like Inventory optimization which challenges the traditional less complicated rules used for setting the safety stock targets. Hence the change management was not an after-thought, but was kept in mind during all phases of the project.
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