Industry Summary Articles

Infor today announced Infor Integrated Business Planning (IBP), v11.1, a comprehensive solution suite that delivers enterprise access to the information and tools needed to optimize supply chain processes. The release integrates core supply chain management (SCM) processes such as sales & operations planning (S&OP), demand planning (DP), and supply planning (SP) processes into a single, holistic solution to provide enhanced visibility and control across the global supply chain. Infor IBP is designed to increase value for users through significant enhancements to the demand planning and supply planning processes and connects them to financial planning, and by delivering a robust application that can be deployed in the cloud or on-premise. 
 
“Visibility and management of our supply chain is the central factor for the success of our organization, and by implementing Infor IBP, we are able to follow the plans and make proactive adjustments through a fully integrated view of our supply, demand and finances. By leveraging advanced statistical algorithms, we are able to generate value for our customers and find a balance point to keep all target costs, inventory and service levels in an optimal range,” said Ulisses De Lima Messias, S&OP and Demand Manager, Química Amparo. “By partnering with Infor, we are laying a solid foundation to support continued and sustainable growth for our organization.”
 
Infor IBP has been developed to tackle major challenges frequently encountered in a modern dynamic supply chain. Increased globalization has helped create access to new markets for suppliers, but in turn it results in disconnected and disjointed teams and data, whether by geographic distance or through silos. Infor IBP provides capabilities that unify data sets and allow users to collaborate globally to create plans that support   business goals. This creates much needed reliability and repeatability of processes and outputs. By eliminating silos and bridging the gap between strategy and operations, companies are able to assess actual performance rates, which in turn facilitate better decision-making to help connect execution and strategy.

 Infor IBP was developed to provide core analytics, visibility, collaboration and execution capabilities to help organizations across industries get closer to real orchestration of their supply chain and retain control of costs and services delivered. 
 
Core Features

Improved Data Visualization & Analytics – The release of Infor IBP brings about a modern, user-friendly aesthetic to enhance the data visualization process. By adding gauge and trend chart types that are embedded within worksheets, users are able to plot values in relation to minimum and maximum ranges that are stylistically similar to a car’s speedometer. New formatting options, such as color-coding, will ease the process for tracking analytics. This new function allows for a quick visual reference of acceptable or underperforming measurements.

Intelligent S&OP Module – Accurate and comprehensive S&OP forecasts are an essential component for aligning supply, demand, and financial objectives. By integrating a standalone S&OP module, Infor IBP allows for a more collaborative approach to planning and analysis with a unified model of demand, supply chain, and financial data at any level of granularity or dimension. The module is equipped with industry-specific templates and features enhancements such as dynamic supply demand re-balance and profitable trade-offs. Through Infor Ming.le, multi-user collaboration is made possible both inside and outside the application to deliver tracking, alerts and drill-backs that monitor key metrics such as supply chain costs, lead times and forecast variability.

Improved Demand+ – Infor IBP vastly improves creation of baseline forecasts to enable users to simultaneously create and compare multiple statistical forecast models with automatic detection of key variables such as seasonality, step changes, and obsolescence prediction. Users can also customize alerts to provide more flexible forecasting. The latest version also has an embedded workbench for market intelligence and features historical variability calculations to support inventory visibility. The secure web-based layout creates easy access for collaborative forecasting with sales, finance, production, customers, and trade partners.

Optimized Supply+ –Infor IBP features Supply+ to help optimize key supply chain variables such as capacity, material, inventory, and distribution constraints. By including the Supply+ functionality, users are able to plan across variable time horizons to forecast strategic, tactical, and operational scenarios. Users can evaluate ‘what if’ situations and compare viability across all areas including inventory, sales production, warehouse and purchase analysis. Users also gain the ability to import data from the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to IBP for reviewing scenarios to create models that factor in different business cycles and demand spikes.  

“Managing the modern supply chain is a complex task, with many converging factors such as the steady growth of globalization, the rapid evolution of production technologies and the proliferation of customer-centric supply chains directly impacting the way our customers address new challenges. To remain competitive, it is critical that an agile, collaborative approach is in place to properly manage demand and create accurate forecasts. Infor IBP was built with these challenges in mind, not only to overcome known complexities but also to lay the foundation for a swift, flexible and contemporary supply chain,” said John Bermudez, vice president, Product Management, Infor. “At Infor, we closely monitor the needs of our users to anticipate the needs of tomorrow and deliver solutions that help position our customers for success.”

To view the original press release, please click here.

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