Document4

ESPRIT R&D PROJECTINDUSTRIAL RTD PROJECTINFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAMMECommission of the European CommunitiesDIRECTORATE GENERAL III

CHAMANAdvanced tools for integrated supply

CHain MANagement in European SMEs

USER REQUIREMENTS

D.1.1

Pages numbered from 1/100 through 100/100

Type: Technical reportDocument number: D11Public status: PublicCirculation: All actorsDelivery Date: January 1999Version:1.3 - Final

Co-ordinator:ELECTRONIC TRAFIC S.A

Partners:University of Sunderland

Prolog Development CenterVidal Grau Muebles S.AD line international AS

FEOEIM

Contents

1. INTRODUCTION..........................................................................7

2. PROJECT OBJECTIVES.............................................................9

2.1. Overall description of the Project..................................................9

2.2. CHAMAN Objectives...................................................................11

2.3. Expected benefits.......................................................................12

2.3.1. Expected benefits for the users of the application......................12

2.3.2. Expected benefits for the European Industries...........................12

3. METHODOLOGY FOR THE IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF USERS.................................................................................14

4. SYSTEM USERS.......................................................................16

4.1. Users of CPSM (CHAMAN Production & Scheduling Module)...19

4.1.1. Users..........................................................................................19

4.1.2. Planning and scheduling.............................................................20

4.1.3. Strategies...................................................................................22

4.1.4. Examples from interviews...........................................................23

4.2. Users of CDM (CHAMAN Distribution Module)...........................27

4.3. Users of CSM (CHAMAN Sales Module)....................................32

4.4. Users of CAM (CHAMAN Administration Module)......................34

5. METHODOLOGY FOR THE IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF USERS NEEDS....................................................................39

5.1. Identification of the Users Needs................................................39

5.1.1. Interviews structure....................................................................40

5.1.2. Questionnaire structure..............................................................40

5.2. Analysis of user needs................................................................41

6. SPECIFICATION OF USER NEEDS.........................................43

6.1. Results From the Study of the questionnaires............................43

6.1.1. Results from Section 1: General Data........................................46

6.1.2. Results from Section 1: Logistic environment.............................46

6.1.3. Results from Section 2: CPSM, CDM, CSM and CAM

requirements...............................................................................50

6.1.4. Results from Section 2: Requirements for integrated system.....55

© 1999 CHAMAN Consortium Page 2/100

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Deliverable 1.1: User requirements CHAMAN/WP1/Version 2.1

6.1.5. Results from Section 3: HW, SW and OS requirements.............57

6.1.6. Results from Section 4: Additional Remarkable Comments.......58

6.2. Production managers Needs and Requirements........................58

6.3. Distribution managers Needs and Requirements.......................59

6.4. Sales Managers Needs and Requirements................................63

6.5. Supply chain manager Needs and Requirements......................65

7. SMES SPECIFIC CONSTRAINTS.............................................66

8. USER GROUPS.........................................................................69

9. DEMONSTRATION SITES DESCRIPTION...............................73

9.1. Dline international as..................................................................73

9.1.1. Customer order handling............................................................73

9.1.2. Production order handling...........................................................74

9.1.3. Current information.....................................................................75

9.1.4. Shipping......................................................................................76

9.1.5. Forecasts....................................................................................76

9.1.6. Demonstration............................................................................76

9.2. Vidal Grau Muebles....................................................................78

9.2.1. Description..................................................................................78

9.2.2. Demonstration environment........................................................79

10. GLOSSARY...............................................................................83

10.1. Glossary of Acronyms.................................................................83

11. BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................85

12. ANNEX.......................................................................................86


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SUMMARY

CHAMAN project addresses task 8.21, of the Esprit Work-Programme on Integration in Manufacturing, Directorate General III of the European Commission. The CHAMAN strategic goal is improving the supply chain management in European SMEs, by means of the implementation and demonstration of a responsive pro-active system that covers the whole supply chain: production scheduling, distribution management and sales forecasting, on a low cost platform. The work plan is broken down into five main phases:

User and System requirements analysis, defining the user needs and system requirements for the introduction of CHAMAN in their application domains. The user and system requirements will form the base for the validation and evaluation of the work to be developed during the project work plan.

System specification and analysis, drawing up the specification for the modules to be developed afterwards as well as the formats and context of the messages to be interchanged.

Designing and implementing the integrated system having the following components: CAM (CHAMAN Administration module), CPSM (CHAMAN Production module), CSM (CHAMAN Sales Forecasting module), CDM (CHAMAN distribution module) with their GUI and the standard compliant interface for the message interchange.

Integrating the different applications in an integrated supply chain management system. Through the verification of the individual applications, performing the evaluation of the demonstration and obtaining a first evaluation and refinement of the systems developed.

Validating and demonstrating the system, by means of demonstrating the CHAMAN tool kit in specific supply chains, comparing the results with the zero state. Evaluating of cost-effectiveness and performing a system assessment multicriteria analysis.

Exploiting and disseminating the system by keeping track of technical or market changes affecting the project, ensuring the maximisation of exploitation opportunities and disseminating the work carried out and results achieved.

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This is the first project deliverable. The document, based on an in-depth literature review, questionnaires and direct interviews to a group of interested actors involved in the supply chain, describes the current situation of the supply chain management systems in the European companies. Then the observed trends in technological and organisational developments are reported.

The deliverable is structured in the following sections:

Introduction: it is underlined the importance of the role of integrated management of the supply chain in the SMEs in the light of the expected increase in their competitiveness. The problem of supply chain management is stated.

Project objectives: an overall description of the project is stated jointly with its main objectives and the expected benefits for the users of the application and European industries in general.

Identification and analysis of users methodology: in order to define the user needs, it has been needed to identify first the users from which these needs have been described. The methodology for the identification of these users is shown in this section.

System users: following the methodology defined in the previous section, the system users are described in detail giving a general description for each application with a further description of their individual characteristics.

Identification and analysis of users needs methodology: once the system users have been described, the user needs have been defined following a methodology, which is presented in this section.

Specification of user needs: following the methodology defined in the previous section, the data gathered is presented in this section summarising the state of the art of the companies, their aims, technology installed and requirements for a successful system.

SMEs specific constraints: From the results of user needs the specific constraints of SMEs are summarised. The contribution of CHAMAN to improve SMEs situation in European market is described, taking into account the internal and external necessities of SMEs to work co-ordinately.

User groups: in order to define the user needs, a group of users have been contacted to be directly involved during the whole project in the development of CHAMAN applications. A brief description of these users is presented in this section.

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Demonstration sites description: the industrial partners who supply chain will be managed by CHAMAN are described on detail. Vidal Grau Muebles S.A and d line international as has been described from a general view point and assessing the specific constraints at their sites.

The participants in the study that led to this deliverable are:

Ramón Ferri, Vicente Sebastián Javier Nuñez, (ETRA).

Eric Fletcher (UOS).

Hans Rast, (PDC).

Aurelio Gómez (VGM).

Lars Svendsen (d line international as).

Mariano Carrillo (FEOEIM).

The experts who have contributed to the definition of the framework of the state of the art in supply chain management and to the identification of users' requirements are:

Vicente Juan, Fernando Juan (INTEREXIT).

Carmelo Parandinos (Transportes Alabau).

Javier Martí (Salvessen Logística).

Eduardo Grau (Federico Giner Muebles).

Juan Runo (Confortec).

Carlos Payá (Muebles Picó).

Peter Atkinson (Tagor Limited).

Bill Stewart (Federation Brewery ltd.).

Norman McBain (CAMM).

Ole B. Nielsen (Elwis Royal A/S).

V. Lund (Rynkeby Maskinfabrik A/S).

S.N. Jensen (Jyda-Sekvensa A/S)

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1. INTRODUCTION

The supply chain is a collection of functional activities, which span enterprise functions from the ordering and receipt of raw materials through the manufacturing of products and their distribution and delivery to the customer. In order to operate efficiently, these functions must operate in an integrated manner. Providing rapid and quality responses to supply chain events. It requires the co-ordination of multiple functions across the enterprise and between enterprises as well.

The integrated view of the supply chain means considering activities like transport, warehousing, goods handling, stock control, purchasing, planning and suppliers schedule and order processing like elements or components of the same system. Therefore, these elements will be related and are interdependent, that is, a decision taken over one element of this system will affect the other elements of it.

Industrial organisations are continually faced with challenges to reduce product development time, improve product quality and reduce production cost and lead times. Increasingly, these challenges cannot be effectively met by isolated change to specific organisational units, but instead depend critically on the relationships and interdependencies among different organisation or organisational units.

With the movement towards a global economy, companies are increasingly inclined towards specific, high-value-adding manufacturing niches. This, in turn, increasingly transforms the above challenges into problems of establishing and maintaining efficient material flows along product supply chain. The ongoing competitiveness of an organisation is tied to the dynamics of the supply chains in which it participates, and recognition of this fact is leading to considerable change in the way organisations interact with their supply chain partners.

Transportation management is also an integral part of supply chain management. Many manufacturers have not planned and co-ordinated their transport causing excess travel for commercial vehicles having detrimental effects on economy, environment and their own business.

Implementing CHAMAN will enhance not only SMEs industrial processes, but besides it will provide a gate to new entrepreneurial ways to face the traditional industry. The successful use of IT tools will place in a similar technology stage small enterprises and bigger competitors.

The process, which will lead to the implementation of a set of tools for the management of a wide range of supply chains, has to be bottom-up. The first phase of the process, of which

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this document is the final output, is to make a review of existing SMEs management procedures as well as to collect inputs and requirements from the relevant key actors, who represent the potential market of CHAMAN outputs.

After a preliminary analysis gathered from technical literature and current standards, relevant information has been collected through the questionnaires, personal interviews and direct observation in three selected countries Spain, Denmark and United Kingdom.

The output of this combination of surveys was useful in defining the current state of a large number of logistic chains and more important to define the user needs requested to evolve from the current stage to an integrated supply chain management.

This deliverable will serve, apart from its own value in setting the current state of sales forecasting, production, distribution and supply chain management in European SMEs, as a basis for the development of the CHAMAN tools which will be developed later in the project.

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2. PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The CHAMAN project is a 30-month running project in the Integration in Manufacturing domain. The projects are grouped in project clusters and this project is inside the Enterprise Logistic Cluster. The domain, cluster and project objectives can be summarised as follows:

The goal of Integration and Manufacturing activities is to accelerate and enhance the ability of the European Manufacturing industry to capitalise on the emergence of the global information infrastructure, through the development of new IT solutions.

The objective of the Enterprise logistic cluster is to develop and demonstrate advanced IT solutions for the design, management and control of enterprise chain of logistics, taking consideration of both intra- and inter-enterprise logistic chains.

The project strategic goal is improving the supply chain management in European SMEs, by means of the implementation and demonstration of a responsive pro-active system that covers the integration of critical areas of the supply chain: production scheduling, distribution management and sales prediction.

CHAMAN is a user driven and application oriented project. Its goal is developing a set of advanced tools, making use of some pre-existing ESPRIT technology, for environmentally friendly integrated supply chain management, which incorporates a common data exchange format. As exploitation is the priority for a consortium with a strong industrial lead, the technology will be demonstrated through two practical implementations at Vidal Grau and d line international as.

2.1. Overall description of the Project

Recent studies (‘Strategic Sourcing’, Co. Development International) have shown that a 10% reduction in Supply Chain Costs can in the best case result in a 30-50% increase in profit. The problem is especially acute for EU manufacturing SMEs that are increasingly pressed by the global competition.

These demanding constraints and the perspective of current and future economic environment has caused enterprises seeking ways and means by which they may be prepared to gain competitive advantage. It is assumed the need to change business processes to allow better organisations, which can be more flexible to supply chains pulled by customers' demand.

Information technology tools exist and are used by large companies, but SMEs both

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manufacturers and carriers can not afford them due to:

The need of large investments to access to advanced technology.

The lack of integration among the different tools covering different stages of the supply chain.

The lack of a SME-specific oriented standard framework giving the companies independence from a given tool supplier.

PROVIDERS CUSTOMERS

MANUFACTURINGSME

Unintegrated unresponsive systemscovering just part of the Supply Chain

Figure 1Current Situation

It must be remarked the growing use of information flow as a feedback element from the customer to the other actors of the supply chain in order to better focus the products, processes and services with the final objective of adapting them to the demand. CHAMAN will have two major interested activities: the flow of goods and information from the manufacturer to the customer and the flow of information from the retails to the other elements of the supply chain. The project objectives and results can be visualised in the next figure, where the situation after CHAMAN would be reflected.

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PROVIDERSCUSTOMERS

MANUFACTURINGSME

Open, integrated, responsive system withcost-efficient, coverage of the Supply Chain

S IC

WWW

SUPERBUSCIM REFLEXFORESIGHT

Figure 2 Situation after CHAMAN

All these activities imply a new model of management in the relations among the retails, manufacturers, suppliers and logistic operators. Concerning the added value of the service offered, the goal is to establish a "pull" service, pulled by the customer against the current "push" situation, interchanging information with the retails and working jointly with distributors and suppliers by shared forecast demand.

Logistics in this way is concerned with the integration of activities that always existed in the supply chain (warehousing, transport, orders management, etc.). Until now the decisions with respect these activities had been taken in an isolated way inside the companies under different functional areas like purchasing, goods management, planning, production control, sales, distribution, etc. Changes in the companies' competitive environment and the capability to access to new IT solutions will permit us through CHAMAN the integration of these activities and decisions.

2.2. CHAMAN Objectives

The operational objectives arisen from the strategic goals described previously are as follows:

Development of a Production scheduling tool: CHAMAN will adapt and enhance an advanced scheduling tool to respond to point of sales prediction and distribution via a standard interface.

Development of a Distribution tool: CHAMAN will develop an advanced fleet management system to respond to point of sales prediction and requirements of production via a standard interface. This system will incorporate real time dynamic

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scheduling features: traceability of shipments and rescheduling of transporting vehicles in case of unexpected incidents.

Development of a Sales prediction tool: CHAMAN will adapt an advanced and user friendly Bayes linear decision support system for management forecasting and decision making, this tool will respond to production scheduling and distribution management via standard interface.

Usage of Information technologies: CHAMAN will develop a SME-oriented data based application that spans the total supply chain (from order generation to customer delivery) and provides an open, integrative framework where other tools- not only CHAMAN ones- can be plugged in. This framework will focus on the specific needs of European SMEs.

Implementation and Demonstration of the system as an integrated complete supply chain management tool at two companies that are good examples of the current situation of the European SMEs: Vidal Grau S.A. and d line international as.

2.3. Expected benefits

2.3.1. Expected benefits for the users of the application

The CHAMAN application will permit the different actors in the supply chain, that is, suppliers, manufacturers and logistic operators to work jointly with the objective to provide a better service to the customers. This will permit them to eliminate most of the activities that do not provide an added value to the supply chain, reducing their costs and improving their service quality.

More detailed benefits for the users of each application can be seen in section 4.

2.3.2. Expected benefits for the European Industries

The implementation of a system with the CHAMAN characteristics will facilitate different kinds of industries to inter-actuate together providing an integrated virtual enterprise pulled by customer needs. This will permit each company to provide a set of services that was not able to provide working in an isolated way.

The benefits will not only refer to improve the user services but also the improvement of the own industrial processes by the use of distributed IT solutions.

In a general way, the implementation of IT solutions will help SMEs to think their own

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process before implementing a new application. This kind of “rethinking” is the base of the industrial improvement. In this process SME studies analyse and review all its business processes and at that point of time redefine its way of operating. As one of these IT solutions, CHAMAN will help these companies to better understand their own processes.

CHAMAN aims to be a useful tool for SMEs with a simplified implementation so that it gives SMEs the possibility of using methodologies usually accessible only to big corporations. CHAMAN should not only be a new integrated tool, but it could also provide to SMEs a vehicle for changing their traditional business culture into a new model of operating.

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3. METHODOLOGY FOR THE IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF USERS

The need to establish a methodology for the identification and analysis of the users of an integrated system like CHAMAN arises from the nature of the problem the project will deal with i.e. integrated supply chain management. The problem affects a wide and diverse community of users, with different needs and problems. Taking into account the social, environmental and industrial impacts that the project might have, it is very important not to miss any of its potential users. This can only be done by defining a proper methodology.

The methodology to identify the users is similar to those proposed by the European Commission through specific task forces and horizontal projects, in order to contribute to standards and to compare results achieved among different projects.

Concerning the methodology to be used we have followed the stakeholder analysis method, herewith it can found an explanation of the methodology and the work expected for all the application. A full description of the methodology can be seen in [1].

Stakeholder Analysis Identified all users/stakeholders and their roles in the system? p

Specified goals of each user/stakeholder group? p

Specified potential costs and benefits to each group? p

Tried to optimise costs/benefits for each user group? p

Specified high level needs for each user/stakeholder group? p

Table 1 Stakeholder analysis method

Stakeholder analysis approach

Stakeholder analysis is a tool to assist in identifying the range of stakeholders whose views should be consulted, and also helps to summarise the costs and benefits that a system may give to each stakeholder group. It consists also in deciding who should take part in evaluation activities. The technique will also be of value later in the evaluation phases of design when the relative advantages and disadvantages of different design solutions are being considered. Stakeholder analysis can also be used to assist developers in checking why a particular system or application is required and what benefits each stakeholder group may

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gain from it. In addition, the activity also assists in identifying what costs are associated with using a system, which of them will include financial considerations, what effort is needed to learn to use the system, what changes will be introduced in working habits, etc.

The way we have implemented the stakeholder approach can be seen in the next figure:

Initial identification of generic actorswhich can be involved in the problem

domain.

Definition of the typology of roles whichthe different actors can play.

CAMCSM

CDM

Identification of actors directly orindirectly involved in the project,

including their categorisation withinthe range of possible roles.

CPS

CAMCSM

CDM

Identification of goals, benefits anddisadvantages for each actor.

CPS

ST

EP

1S

TE

P 2

ST

EP

3

Section 4

Table 2

Section 4.1

Section 4.4

Section 4.3

Section 4.2

Table 4

Table 8

Table 7

Table 6

Figure 3 User needs methodology

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4. SYSTEM USERS

A supply chain, is a network of facilities and distribution elements that carries out the functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished products, and the distribution of these intermediate products to the transform actors or of these finished products to final customers. Supply chains exist in both service and manufacturing organisations, although the complexity of the chain may vary greatly from industry to industry and from product to product.

This section identifies the actors and defines the roles they play in their supply chains. This classification has been conducted following the methodology defined in the previous section. Firstly, it is presented an example of four different supply chains that have helped us to identify the components involved in the supply chain. These components must develop a role in its supply chain, which is also described. Secondly, a more detailed description of the users of each application is shown.

Below it is an example of four simple supply chains for a group of products, where raw materials are procured from vendors, transformed into intermediate or finished goods in a number of steps, then transported to distribution centres, and ultimately, customers. Realistic supply chains have multiple end products with shared components, facilities and capacities. The flow of materials is not always along an arborescent network, various modes of transport may be considered.

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Figure 4 Supply Chains examples

In this figure, four supply chains can be seen coloured in red, blue, green and black. Starting with the first supply chain, let us suppose it deals with home electrical appliances, following the red colour, six different actors can be identified. The first one, S1 represents the plastic, metallic and electrical material supplier (we could have different physical suppliers for each type of material). This supplier has not a warehousing capacity and leaves the warehousing, distribution and handling to a logistic operator. This logistic operator will work at the same time with a number of distribution companies or subcontracted vehicles to perform its function in the supply chain as well as a group of personnel to manage the warehouse (this is the second physical component of this supply chain Wa1). This logistic operator delivers a number of components to the home electrical appliances manufacturing company (M1), which produces its new model of refrigerator, which is having a commercial success this year. This manufacturing company is working with its own fleet of vehicles, which carry its products to a special warehouse (Wb1). This warehouse is working for a set of companies, having among its best customers a big department store (DS1) which has a sales promotion of this type of product. The Distribution Company that manages the warehouse is in charge of distributing this type of products to the retails of a given group (Rs1).

The physical elements in this supply chain and the roles they play can be summarised in the following diagram.

Company1

Warehouse1

Dept. Store1

Warehouse2

Company2

Retail1

Supplier Logisticoperator Manufacturer

Distributor Point ofsales

Clientele

Customers

Figure 5 Actors and Roles of a supply chain

Concerning the second supply chain, let us suppose it is concerned with the manufacturing and distribution to a retail chain of plugs. The supply chain starts with the production of the plug pins, this supplier (S2) is very close to the manufacturing company, so the shipping is made by vans owned by the supplier. This manufacturing company (M2), which is the same supplier of the previous supply chain (S1), adds all the plastic components and assembles the plug. Once the product is produced, it is distributed to retail chain specialised in electric devices (R2).

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The physical elements in this supply chain and the roles they play can be summarised in the following diagram.

Company1

Company2

Retail

SupplierManufacturer

Point ofsales

Clientele

Customers

Figure 6 Actors and Roles

The actors and roles of the rest of the supply chains given in the example can be easily identified. A great number of supply chains could have been described, but looking for the generality of project results, we have summarised them by describing the roles that these actors must accomplish in their supply chains.

Role Description

SuppliersThey are the first input to the supply chain. They supply the raw material and/or components or intermediate products to the following link in the supply chain that is generally formed by the manufacturer.

Manufacturers

They transform the raw material and/or components or by-products in the final product by means of processes that provide added value. This added value may have a very wide range, which in some cases may only consist on attributing a commercial name or product trade name.

Distributors They provide the product to the end customer in the retails.

Logistic

operators

The logistic operators step in some parts of the physical flow of raw materials and/or information. Concerning the flow of raw materials, it can be stressed the following: warehousing, load handling, goods discharge, transport, physical distribution and internal goods reposition. Likewise, they can step in the information flow classifying the data, generating orders and logistic orders.

Customers Those who determine the demand in the origin.

Point of sales Retail chain and the origin of the demand determined by customers.

Table 2 Roles typology

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A detailed description of the direct, indirect and likely affected users will be given in the following sections following the stakeholder methodology.

4.1. Users of CPSM (CHAMAN Production & Scheduling Module)

4.1.1. Users

The users of the production module are the actors described in the supply chain management environment as material suppliers and manufactures, which are those organisations that perform the first levels of the logistic chain. As far as CHAMAN is concerned we will focus on the manufacturer alone, as the manufacturer adds most of the value to the chain.

The typical processes at a manufacturer are order handling, production preparation, planning, procurement, scheduling, production, assembling, inspection, packaging and shipment. In an integrated Supply Chain Management System the focus should be on reducing the work and in order to reduce the factory time (= the time from order receipt to the final shipment). It’s often seen that the work time for an order take a few hours, but the time overall handling time might be weeks.

The typical processes are shown in the following table for standard and non- standard products and for non-standard products (make to order/”one-of-a-kind”). Standard products have a well-defined construction, quality and process specifications as well as bills of material and processes. Materials and parts used in standard products are often at hand in inventories and provided based on sales forecasts.

Non standard products on the other hand must be constructed and specified, bills of materials and processes defined before the actual planning and scheduling can be carried out, which might be time consuming and add substantially to the overall turn-around time.

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+: applies(+): may apply

Processes Standard products Non-std. products

Order reception and handling + +

Construction/specification +

Preparation of production orders through bill of materials and bill of processes

(+) +

Production planning + +

Procurement of raw materials and parts (+) +

Reservation of materials and parts from own stock

+ (+)

Production preparation + +

Production scheduling + +

Production execution + +

Assembling + +

Quality control + +

Packing and dispatching + +

Table 3 Processes for standard and non-standard products

The finished goods from one manufacturer might be input to another manufacturer in the supply chain, and the finished goods may either be standard products with fixed design and specification or “one-of-a-kind”/”modification”/”variation” – make to order product.

Though the focus in the CHAMAN project is on the planning and scheduling, integration to the other processes should not be neglected, as the success in practice is very dependent on the other issues

4.1.2. Planning and scheduling

The planning process focus on longer-term tactical objectives (includes master scheduling, balancing demand, procurement and inventory). The planning defines certain

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business objectives and the subsequent analysis determines the constraints that might affect the accomplishment of these objectives. These constraints might be less specific and more flexible the longer the planning horizon is.

The planning process for a manufacturer in a supply chain focuses on the determination of the necessary production capacity, level of materials and parts in stock in order to meet the sales forecast for different products or product groups securing a decided service level as f. ex. a standard delivery time.

In the CHAMAN case data from the CSM could be the base for the planning at the manufacturers taking into account the agreed service levels and ordering procedures agreed between the partners in the chain and administered through the CAM.

For a longer term planing following parameters are typically taken into account:

Average delivery time, service level

Level of utilisation of resources

Level of inventory of materials, components, parts and semi-finished goods

Change of capacity for production means (facilities, equipment, shifts)

Mowing production to other sites or sub suppliers

Change the capacity of manpower (quantity and skills)

As far as the manufacturer sees it, the manufacturer could be member of several supply chains and have own production and sales besides the CHAMAN activities. This makes the planning process more complicated as the manufacturer may want to use the same resources to support different supply chains and own sales. In order to make an optimal utilisation of the production capacity, the manufacturer must do the planning for all interested parties at the same time and with the same planning tool.

Scheduling usually focuses more on short-term issues and tactical objectives. A short- term schedule is based on actual orders (customer and stock orders) and is generated for shop floor production, short-term material deliveries and immediate shipments. Constraints for short-term scheduling are very tangible and only adjustable to a certain degree. Finite capacity of machines, personnel and tools capacity is often a given and allow only limited changes (overtime – extra shifts is considered a medium or long-term parameter).

Material availability at the right time might still be a constraint that can be influenced to some extend through Just-In-Time delivery, both often material and component availability must be considered as given constraints.

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The short-term scheduling should be designed to deal with the above mentioned finite constraints and secure that required production output is achieved.

The scheduling has following parameters to take into consideration:

Time of delivery

Selection of production means (machinery, equipment, sub suppliers, etc

Production sequence

Work hours (overtime, manning of shifts)

Service level (standard delivery times)

Utilisation of resources

Costs (fixed and variable costs, activity based costing)

For short term scheduling based on a given order mix the number of parameters will decrease, often being limited to delivery time, production sequence or work hours. Particularly keeping delivery time seems to be a very important competitive factor, if not the most important for a supply chain concept, when quality and price are with satisfactory limits. In the short term scheduling both orders handled through CHAMAN and orders from other sources should be handled simultaneously in order to utilise the manufacturers resources most beneficial.

4.1.3. Strategies

Therefore companies try to find better ways to control the production flow process, either by very tight planning and scheduling, monitoring and follow-up or by having a over capacity. The latter is the easiest but also the most costly, so many companies are looking for better ways to do their planning and scheduling process as they want to reduce the costs.

An Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) System with close integration to traditional MRP systems gives the manufacturer the possibility to make realistic, synchronised production plans and schedules based on real-world factors. APS distinct itself from traditional materials and capacity planning which work with fixed queue and buffer times and unlimited capacity. This gives fixed turn around times and unrealistic plans. The major difference to APS is that APS works with limited capacity and the order mix dynamically determines queue and waiting times particularly based on the loads at bottleneck resources.

In the APS concept both materials and capacity are handled simultaneous. In some companies the materials and production order control is the heaviest; in other companies

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(flow and assembly) the capacity utilisation is the most important factor in the planning/scheduling process.

The scheduling shall synchronise all operations in production and assembly in an intelligent and dynamic way. This includes both forward and backward planning and combinations as for example scheduling from bottlenecks. Resources, particular bottlenecks, and processes shall be modelled very detailed with precise specification of requirements and constraints.

It’s not so important to find the optimal schedule as the conditions change very rapidly. It’s more important that the scheduling system can handle feed back from the real world on the shop floor, currently arrival of new order in an online environment and respond to “upsets”, that requires immediate synchronised rescheduling.

The CPSM should be able to combine Supply Chain Planning, Enterprise Resource Planning, Production Scheduling and Order Promising in order to:

Enhance customer responsiveness and delivery accuracy;

Reduce inventory and manufacturing costs;

Provide flexibility to meet competitive challenges;

Improve make-span ratios (the ration of total factory time to actual work time) and resource utilisation

Improve financial performance significantly

4.1.4. Examples from interviews

A number of companies has been contacted and visited in order to define the stakeholder analysis; typical examples for these companies are the following four:

A manufacturer with about 60 employees supplying washers to machine and automotive industry. The company utilises two types of international supply chains: one related to large manufacturer of machine equipment and automobiles utilising make-to-order customer specific products and one related to distributors of spare parts in the automotive market with standard products, but with customised packing. Delivery times are defined for each major customer and for standard products. High service is provided with an over capacity in machinery and workforce, availability of special tools and a high stock level of raw material. The competitive advantage is know-how, flexibility, production capacity and raw materials at hand resulting in

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precise deliveries. Forecast is done on different types of raw materials and on standard product to the automotive market. Scheduling is based on standard delivery times. Idle time, after customer orders has been scheduled, are utilised for production of semi-finished standard products or standard products for stock. The company has no control over the supply chain. A carrier does all transportation. (ELWIS ROYAL A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark).

A machine part manufacturer with about 80 employees and the production focuses on components that require special machines, tools and skills. The major customers are equipment manufactures and all production is “make to order”. Materials is either provided by the customer or directly purchased. The customer also provides drawings and instructions. The competitive advance is the specialised machinery, workforce skills and flexibility in capacity. The planning problem is to secure promised delivery times, which is not satisfactory resulting in delays, frequent, near daily, changes in production schedules, overtime etc. Long term planning is done based on estimates for capacity to be sold to major customers, which again is based on their sales forecast per product group. The company has no control over the supply chain. (R. Maskinfabrik A/S, Odense, Denmark)

A bookbindery employing 80 people. Bookbinding is the last process in the production of books, magazines, brochures etc. and requires special machinery and labour capacity. The orders are often known in advance, but the delivery of the material to be bind is often delayed, but the due time for delivery of the bounded material cannot be delayed (magazines has to out on a specific day). This requires a very flexible production capacity and possibility to move workforce between day and night shifts or even adding other shifts and overtime. Rescheduling is done frequently, often several times a day. The company considers itself as part of several supply chains without control and is looking for possible ways to improve the co-ordination between production at the printers who are the preceding entity in the chain. The competitive advantages are keeping delivery times, special machinery, labour capacity, flexibility and neighbourhood. (Th. Jensen & Son Bogbinderi A/S, Hjorring, Denmark)

A supplier of parts to do-it-yourself-assembling furniture manufactures. The service provided is procurement of parts or providing parts from stock and packing specified number of parts in small plastic bags or boxes - Not a screw too much and certainly not a nut to less. The production is just packing either manually or using machines. The orders are placed with both short and long notices, by the scheduling is very dynamic due to delay in deliveries of special parts or due to changes in the customers own production plans. The variables are capacity in different shifts (day- and

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nightshift plus overtime) and delivery times. The schedule is altered several times a day due to attendance and the dynamics in delivery from 3’th parts and the changes in customer requirements. The competitive advantages are flexibility, reliability, quality and prices of the parts due to large volumes as the company act as a wholesaler and importer. As far as supply chain is concerned the company would like it’s customers to have access to the production plan, so they can use this information in their own production and distribution planning. . (Jyda-Sekvensa, Aarhus, Denmark)

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SYSTEM NAME: CPSM (CHAMAN PRODUCTION MODULE)

STAKEHOLDERS GOALS FOR THE STAKEHOLDERS POTENTIAL BENEFITS POTENTIAL DISADVANTAGES.

Direct users

Manufactures

Production Planners

Material and parts suppliers

Right product at right time to right costs and with the agreed quality

Right product at right time to right costs and with the agreed quality

Reduce costs, improve utilisation and competitiveness Precise data foundation,

Tight control and monitoring.

Communication and data processing means and support systems.

Indirect users

Distributors

Sales organisation

Keep the delivery schedules

Keep delivery promises, satisfy demand

Reduce cost, improve utilisation and competitiveness

Satisfied Customers and improved customer loyalty towards product and sales organisation

Precise data foundation,

Tight control and monitoring,

Communication and data processing means and support systems

Others likely to be influenced

Customers

Getting the right product at the right time, at the place and at the right quality and competitive price

Higher satisfaction with the product and service

Table 4 Goals benefits and disadvantages for each actor


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4.2. Users of CDM (CHAMAN Distribution Module)The transport sector, which we have referred during all our study as distributors, could

been divided in the following types of companies:

Figure 7 Types of transport companies

Intermodal transport: These companies are concerned with the integrated transport based on interconnectivity and interoperability of different modal networks. A great number of actors are involved in this type of transport, and although part of the issues are common to CHAMAN, special intermodal transport constraints (intermodal terminal management, intermodal forwarders, special constraints of rail, maritime and air transport) are out of the scope of this project.

Express courier: this is a special case of transport companies focused on the delivery of parcels at a given time. They could be considered as a specific intermodal transport since part of the shipment is realised by means of combined transport i.e. road-air-road.

Full loads: These transport companies are dedicated to the transport of goods by means of complete trucks. As general characteristics, these companies do not have fixed destinations, are mainly focused on export-oriented transport and are normally working with low-price, high-weight and/or high-volume products.


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Part loads: These companies are highly dedicated to manage part loads. Most of its business is national, having most of its fleet working in a regional area and co-ordinating its national transport with associated companies.

Integrated services: The recent logistics trend to outsourcing the transportation function in the increasingly elastic supply chains helps to the creation of a special type of companies offering integrated services. These companies that we will call logistics operator may perform all or part of the services described for the previous companies.

Most part of the needs required by these types of companies will be solved by the CHAMAN distribution module. In order to define the users of the distribution module we will focus on the logistics operators, which offer transport services, but also a number of added-value services which are summarised in the following table:

Added-value services Examples

Shared information between manufacturers and distributors

Percentage of on-schedule deliveries to a specific customer.

Delivery time commitment to the customer.

Commercial information

Sales by product/zone/distribution channel.

Order size.

Stock rotation.

Loading and Unloading.

Product handling Labelled.

Single order preparation: picking and shipping.

Raw material packing.

Management of stocks and supplies Supplies need estimation.

Supply management Manufacturer-Warehousing.

Just in time deliveries to production lines.

Retails delivery.

Table 5 Examples of added-value services

Therefore the users of the distribution module are the distributors and logistic operators. These companies offer to its customers different types of services as explained on Figure 7. At


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the heart of these services, it is needed a fleet management system which will be a common element for all these companies. In the overall enterprise logistics field, we have considered logistics operators those distributors that are offering a set of services integrated in the supply chains they are working in. So we will focus on the logistics operators characteristics since a distributor can be considered as a potential logistics operator.

The information flow depends directly on the way of working of each organisation and the way each organisation interacts with the next element of the supply chain. We have identified the following types of management:

Pull: the demand from the next stage triggers the activity of the previous one. With this type of management, it is obtained better level of stocks and lower obsolescence risks but, however, it requires the sufficient capability to react against the different fluctuations of the demand. An adequate forecasting of the demand improves notably this capacity.

Push: the products are situated at the end of each stage waiting for the demand from the following one. This type of management reduces the risks against uncertainty on the demand but increases the stock level and therefore the obsolescence risk.

Until now SMEs had been working in a pushing way, nevertheless, and with the advent of new technologies, the companies are working in a pulling market driven by customers demand. This new trend can be summarised as follows: if a product is not available at a precise time at a precise place, the results may be lost sales, customer dissatisfaction and production down time.

This pulled market determines changed requirements in terms of place and time. Indeed, a product produced at one point has a very little value unless it is moved to a point where it could be consumed by a prospective customer. In this sense transportation creates a "place" utility. Time utility is created by warehousing and storage. But indirectly transport influences this process by determining the speed and reliability of moving goods from one node to another.

Following the methodology defined in section 3, a number of interested companies have been contacted. The companies' description and their stakeholder analysis are as follows:

International Distribution Company established in the southern part of Valencia's Community, this company is eminently export-oriented, having its target markets in Central Europe. This company works with a high percentage of vehicles of its own, using a small percentage of subcontracted vehicles especially for the local operations. A high percentage of its business is inside the toy and footwear supply


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chain. They are working jointly with an associated company established in Lyon and have a high part of the fleet management problem solved by an EUTELTRACK based system.

Parcel Distribution Company established in Valencia and dedicated to non-urgent parcel transport (however, they have a delivery time of 24-48 hours in almost any place in Spain by using the network provided by a group of associated companies). The parcel distribution marketplace is demanding the monitorisation of the parcels in all the stages of the supply chain, this fact is of critical importance for the parcel distribution companies contacted by CHAMAN. They are really interested in the control centres integration in order to be able to offer to the user the location, status and other important information related to his shipment.

Perishable goods distribution company: it is specialised in the distribution of perishable products that must be maintained to a certain temperature. They have a high percentage of subcontracted vehicles (over 90%). The company is highly dependent on a very large food company strongly positioned in the marketplace, having the benefits of using its network and using it to distribute other type of products. The stock level in the perishable goods companies is lower and the restocking must be continuous depending on the customer needed. It is based in a greater visibility of the demand and sometimes it is needed to know when and where a product is bought in the overall network of retails. This company needs to work in an integrated way with the manufacturer that at the same time must have this level of visibility from the retails. In this way the manufacturer and logistic operator are able to make consolidated forecasts and later a preparation and shipping of orders from the manufacturer to the logistic operator.


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SYSTEM NAME: CDM (CHAMAN DISTRIBUTION MODULE)


Direct users

Logistic department manager

Import/Export traffic operator

Planner & Scheduler

Being able to offer resources, working as a virtual company.

Complete visibility of their resources, vehicles, cargo, warehouse, etc.

Capability of controlling the traffic co-ordinately.

Route optimisation with respect the load and rendezvous.

An increase of the potential business.

Better services provided to their customers.

Optimisation of the trip generation.

Cost reduction concerning the optimisation of the routes.

The disadvantages are quite common for these users.

Data integrity needs to be assured.

Time requested for the training of these systems.

It supposes a radical change in the way of work.

Users want to be assured that the new tools will improve the visibility of the process to make possible further improvements.

Difficult integration with the huge amount of administrative programs.

Indirect users

Truck drivers

Order manager

Associated company operator

Customers

Real time communication between vehicles and control centres.

Integrated management of the administrative and logistic areas.

Integrated information between associated companies.

Control of incidents (deviations, delays, breakdowns) in real time.

Overall control of a given load by the order identification.

Optimisation of the shared resources.


Other logistic operators

Manufacturers/Suppliers

Citizens

Optimise their resources by offering them in a global way.

Offer to their customers updated information on the order through the whole supply chain.

Better use of the road, lower congestion, pollution, etc.

Resources optimisation working co-ordinately.

Improve their supply chain by the distribution integration.

Reduction of freight vehicles in roads.

Users do not want to make visible information on their customers to potential competitors.

Table 6 Goals, benefits and disadvantages for each actor


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4.3. Users of CSM (CHAMAN Sales Module)

The users of the sales module are primarily Customers and Distributors. The customers in particular will wish to feed data to the sales module and generate sales forecasting models for their own immediate requirements. The customers will be generating short term forecasts covering the immediate sales period which can be assumed to be accurate by the remainder of the supply chain. Intermediate and longer range forecasts will also be generated.

Distributors being very close to suppliers will require the short term forecast results in near real time in order to plan distribution. They will also be interested in the longer range forecasts for forward planning.

Manufacturers and their suppliers will in general already have responded to the sales patterns which are the subject of short term predictions and they will be most interested in the medium term predictions which, in their term, will generate the next batch of orders. The longer term predictions will inform their future planning activity.


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SYSTEM NAME: CSM (CHAMAN SALES MODULE))


Direct users

Retailers

Sales Dept.

Monitor product sales

Analyse sales patterns through time and by location.

Predict short term sales

Model and predict intermediate and long term sales trends

Correct stocking of sale goods.

Ability to respond to changes in demand .

Improved targeting of sales promotions

Identification of new markets.

Indirect users

Forwarders

Production Dept.

Advanced visibility of likely demand patterns.

Pre planning of material supplies.

Avoidance of excessive inventory

Better distribution planning

Reduced inventory costs.

Optimisation of the production resources.




Reduction of replanning.

Offer to manufacturers/suppliers updated information on potential orders throughout the supply chain.

Visibility of potential supply chain problems.

Improve the supply chain by forward planning



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4.4. Users of CAM (CHAMAN Administration Module)

The users of the administration module are all actors directly involved in the Supply chain, that is:

Suppliers

Manufacturers

Distributors

Logistics operators

Customers

Each one of the above mentioned actors will use the administration module, designed to give to each of them the information they require.

Being CHAMAN market driven and user oriented, the first user of the administration module should be:

The customer, who must have access to the information of its own orders in process. It must be informed of the latest status of its order in case of need. The customer must have access to the status of an order of his own in progress, and must have access to the status of a delivery of his own

Continuing the chain, Distributors must have visibility of the potential demand of its services. As other elements of the supply chain, they must also give visibility of the in transit goods to the first stage of the chain, the customer.

Manufacturers, must have control of the total chain management, as they are customers and suppliers at the same time. When a manufacturer is involved in a supply chain, he is the most important step of the chain. Manufacturing is the centre of the Value Chain: It must provide to the rest of the chain,

Requirements ========== to Suppliers

Requirements ========== to Distributors

Services and Goods ======to Customers

But Manufacturer must also control

From suppliers ========= that requirements are committed and met.

From Distributor/transport = That components are in the right transit.

For Customers ========= That lead time is met

In general, Manufacturing controls all critical situations which could impact all the


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process.

Several SMEs have been contacted in the process to define CHAMAN users requirements, and all of them have agreed that CAM must provide above mentioned kind of visibility. Specific requirements will be defined in chapter 6.

A general introduction of the user needs approach for this type of innovative system should be conducted through the following levels: Information, Forecast/planning, Direct actions and General issues.

The information level considers which information should be available in the different links of the supply chain.

The forecast/planning level considers which tools and data should be available for order planning.

The direct action level considers which direct actions should be possible via the system.

The general issues level considers which requirements exist for the system in general.

Information:

Between the customer and the sales department

The customer must be able to inquire after a product and find out whether it is in stock. If the product is not in stock, information must be provided as to whether it is possible to assemble the product from semi-finished products. Alternatively, production time must be stated, either according to the total production time stated on the product sheet or according to the duration of the various sub-processes combined with available capacity according to the CPSM of the individual suppliers.

Between the sales/purchasing departments and the supplier

The sales department must have access to the same information as the customer. In addition, the sales/purchasing departments must be informed in case of deviations from the plan by a supplier, and it must be possible to draw up delivery schedules for each supplier.

It must be possible to follow the quality documentation of a product throughout production at the supplier’s factory.


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Access must be provided to all data in the supplier’s CPSM/MRP.

Forecast/planning:

If a customer inquires after a specialised product, the purchasing department must be able to simulate the production time of the product in question and obtain an expected delivery time from the supplier’s planning system (CPSM). In case of several equivalent suppliers, the system must be able to state the supplier who offers the shortest delivery time.

The purchasing department must be able to simulate changes in the order sequence and determine the consequences of doing so.

The system must be able to forecast and simulate the order sequence of standard products of the individual suppliers which would comply with the sales forecast based on sales figures, goods in stock, orders in progress, the available capacity of the individual suppliers, and other factors.

It must be possible to transform one forecast and one simulated delivery schedule into an order.

Direct actions:

The customer must be able to place an order directly into the system. However, such orders must be checked by the sales department before being processed through the system.

In case of deviations in the supplier’s delivery/production schedule, the system must warn the purchasing department, and it must be possible to simulate new delivery schedules. The delivery schedule obtained by the purchasing department does not apply until it has been approved by the supplier.

The most suitable supplier is chosen based on the simulated production schedules, and the order is placed with this supplier. On the supplier’s acceptance of the order, the order confirmation must be registered in the purchasing/sales system.

The acceptance by a supplier of an alteration to a drawing must be registered, and new orders for the product in question must not be commenced until such an acceptance is given.


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It must be possible to maintain quality management documents at the suppliers’ premises.

It must be possible to exchange all types of documents through the entire supply chain.

General issues:

It must be possible to prepare schedules for updating different parts of the system, in order for the different suppliers to have different updating frequencies. When an inquiry is made anywhere in the system, the time of the latest update must be stated.

Access must be provided to all information anywhere in the system, and subsequently restricted admission must be made for the individual links of the supply chain.

A supplier must be able to define the information available from other customers which he wishes to be accessible to the system.

The purpose of the system is to streamline and reduce the risks of errors in communication between the individual participants in the supply chain and thus obtain a reduction in transaction costs for all participants.


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SYSTEM NAME: CAM (CHAMAN ADMINISTATION MODULE))


Direct users

Customers

Distributors

Manufacturer

MFG Supplier

Have an On Line control of orders situation

Give visibility of in transit parts and orders

React to any supply or production problem.

React in the minimum lead time to Manufacturer requirements

Be informed On Line own Order have access to manufacturing stock.

Complete visibility of resources needed, vehicles, cargo, warehouse, etc.

Parts situation; delayed orders; production status

Requirements visibility.

Potential efforts to control data integrity which requires HW/SW and human resources investment.

Potential risk for giving internal information outside the company

Risk of suppliers' deficient information.

Indirect users

Account Dept.

Sales Dept.

Production Dept.

Have visibility of cash-flow situation.

Control lead time commitment.

Avoid unnecessary set ups

Better cash planning; reduce financial cost

Increase customer satisfaction.

Optimisation of the production resources.

The sales department might be affected adversely by the introduction of these systems.




Optimise their resources by offering them in a global way.

Offer to their customers updated information on order through the whole supply chain.

Resources optimisation working co-ordinately.

Improve their supply chain by the distribution integration.

Reduction of freight vehicles in roads.

To be monitored by an external element of the company reduces its own management.

Showing their resources to potential competitors might be dangerous.



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5. METHODOLOGY FOR THE IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF USERS NEEDS

A variety of techniques have been used to identify the user needs, ranging from indirect approaches such as consultation with other experts and reading relevant literature, to more direct techniques such as interviewing users, the use of questionnaires and direct observation.

The methodology for the identification of user needs has been covered following three important areas:

General information through experts' consultation, literature reviews.

Innovative developments through questionnaires, interviews, surveys.

Existing applications through direct observation, on-site interviews.

5.1. Identification of the Users Needs

The Consortium resolved to involve end users since the beginning of the project, as this would help in achieving quality results.

We selected the following activities to obtain the required information:

1) To consult existing associations to know general problems concerning logistics. We have selected FEOEIM (Association of furniture manufacturers) and ADL (Association for the Development of Logistics).

2) To review the products that are already in the marketplace, both the integrated ones and those concerning the modules to be developed in the project.

3) To make direct interviews to the different actors in the companies from managers to technical personnel.

4) To circulate a questionnaire asking for the main problems in the logistic field and for the most desirable features in supply chain related applications. This questionnaire has been distributed through the Consortium members and the associations mentioned above, with the intention of assuring the generality of results.

The interviews and questionnaires were structured in order to obtain a better management of the information obtained. The interviews have been done to the potential users of the applications to be developed in CHAMAN.


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5.1.1. Interviews structure

Concerning the administration module and through FEOEIM a set of relevant SMEs, in the furniture field were contacted. The interviews were structured as follows.

1) A first interview to explain the project to the company. This includes the project objectives, the schedule of the project and their expected involvement. These interviews were made to companies' managers.

2) The Consortium representatives informed the group of companies selected about the general solution for the administration module explained in the technical annex. This interested group was convoked to three meetings where the initial aims and requirements where refined and the initial solution was evaluated. Special interest was put in the human factors associated to of this IT solution.

Concerning the logistic areas modules (sales forecasting, production & scheduling and logistics & distribution) each developing partner (ETRA, PDC and UOS) contacted with two or three companies strongly related with their modules. These interviews were structured as follows:

1) A first interview to explain the project to the company. This includes the project objectives, the schedule of the project and their expected involvement. These interviews were made to companies' managers.

2) A second interview to explain the CHAMAN approach to the elements to be integrated in the supply chain and to start to identify the companies' own characteristics and environmental aspects that could be taken into account in the CHAMAN development.

3) A third interview to assess the current applications the companies are working with. In this interview, the future constraints and the possible functional improvements to be added to CHAMAN approach were identified.

4) A fourth interview to evaluate with the expected final users of the application the general solution of the different modules described in the technical annex and to summarise their needs for this module.

5.1.2. Questionnaire structure

On top of the interviews described in 5.1.1, the questionnaire has served to the Consortium to have a larger scale user survey. The questionnaire has been piloted with a


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sample of users described in section 7. Response rates for questionnaires have been assured through the involvement of the Consortium associations FEOEIM and ADL that have found a set of complementary companies with different sizes, technology levels and domains. The questionnaire has been structured to obtain simple factual information rather than complex opinions although some open questions have been done. The structure of the questionnaire has been as follows:

Part1 General data

Organisational data

General data about the Organisation;

Type of organisation;

Data about the person who answer the questionnaire.

Logistic environment

Customer service and demand.

Order processing

Transport

Inventory; stocks & manufacturing process.

Section 2 User requirements

Sales forecasting;

Production & Scheduling;

Distribution & Logistics;

Integrated supply chain management

Section 3 Computing requirements

Hardware & Software platform

Section 4 Additional comments

Table 9 Questionnaire structure

5.2. Analysis of user needs

The goal of the user analysis has been to lead the designers, developers and service providers to better understand user characteristics, in order to take them into account in the further development of the project.

In order to analyse users’ needs, the gathered data was processed in the following way:


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Making a classification with respect the logistic activity importance;

Making a separate classification for the different modules to be implemented;

Identifying the preferences expressed for each HW-SW-OS configuration and making a corresponding classification.

Reporting additional remarkable comments, if any.

After the questionnaire results study and following the stakeholder analysis defined previously in the section 3. A written description of the user needs and the high level needs has been summarised for each application following the next sample table.

SYSTEM NAME : CHAMAN APPLICATION MODULE

STAKEHOLDERS

AND ROLES

USER NEEDS SUMMARY IMPLICATIONS FOR SYSTEM

DESIGN

Direct users

Indirect users


Table 10 User needs summary


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6. SPECIFICATION OF USER NEEDS

A detailed description of the user needs is presented following the methodology explained in the previous section. We have had to identify different types of requirements since we have considered the more important ones as Mandatory and the less important as Desirable. The latter will be taken into account during the development of the project but will not necessarily be kept within the scope of the project.

6.1. Results From the Study of the questionnaires

The results presented in the following sections are a summary of the study performed during the first work package of the project. This study has been conducted through a number of questionnaires, an example of which can be seen in the Annex A.

The companies that have answered the questionnaire are the following:

Fainco, S.A: Manufacturing and installation of industrial buildings (prefabricated concrete). The company operates at National level in Spain and has its own fleet of vehicles.

Talleres Andres Ramón: Repair and distribution of pieces for all type of vehicles. Its activity is limited to the Valencia Community.

Grefusa: Snacks Manufacturing and distribution. It has its own transport network and its activity is at Spanish level. This company is preparing the distribution at European level.

Transportes Campillo: Logistic Operator for non refrigerated goods. It makes Picking and owns warehouses for renting. Its activity is at International level.

Orliman: Manufacturing and distribution of orthopaedic products. Its products are distributed at National and International level by a subcontracted transport network.

Vidal Descuento Duro, S.L: Warehousing and distribution of low-priced products (1€). They have own fleet and a lot of distribution points in Spain.

Cega Multidistribución: Logistic Operator for non refrigerated goods. It makes Picking and owns warehouses for renting. Its activity is at National and International level.

Grupo Sindel: Distribution of electric material at National level. They have a lot of distribution points in Spain.

Sanz Hermanos: Manufacturing and assembling of farming machinery.

Autotrim: Manufacturing of upholstery and dashboards. It is supplier of FORD


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ESPAÑA.

Ferro Enamel Española, S.A: This company has three main activity lines: manufacturing and distribution of enamels and colouring matter; porcelain manufacturing for bathtubs, saucepans, etc.; and PVC for gardening.

Mobiliario Royo s.l: Manufacturing assembling and distribution of bathroom furniture and complements. It has own fleet but also subcontracts services to Fainco S.A

Th. Jensen & Son Bogbinderi A/S 20 mio. DKK Manufacturing graphical sub supplier.

Dansk System Inventar A/S Manufacturing metal/furniture supplier.

Bodilsen A/S 200 mio. DKK Manufacturing furniture supplier.

DAKO A/S 255 mio Manufacturing medical equipment supplier.

ELWIS ROYAL A/S Manufacturing metal sub supplier.

Confortec. Manufacturing upholstered furniture. It is small company and its production is dedicated mainly to national market (Spain) and now is starting to export mainly to European market.

Muebles ORGA S.L. It is specialised in manufacturing raw wood tables to be commercialised by other furniture manufacturers. All its production is sold in the national market (Spain). The different phases of the productive process can be summarised in the following four points: cut up and saw the wood, cut up and test of the tops, mechanised wood and tops, assembly and finished.

ARGUTI: Manufacturing company of kitchen furniture, doors, cupboards, windows and carpenter’s workshop for a production sold in Spanish market. Its production is highly mechanised with numeric control technology and its production is produced under demand. Its main customer is the construction sector.

ARISTIDES S.A: Manufacturing company of kitchen and bathroom furniture having a 8% of its production for export mainly in the French market.

CALER-TOL S.A: Manufacturer of classical English furniture with marquetry. They have the capacity to manufacture specialised furniture on demand.

FLUXA footwear S.A: Company dedicated to women shoes with a strong importance on design. Manufacture its own trade mark and also manufacture for other popular marks. Its production is dedicated to national and international market.

Calzados KROCK S.L: Manufacturer of women shoes for spare time. 80% of its production is dedicated to United States concentrated in a unique customer. The rest


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of the production is dedicated to national market.

SELECTAR S.L: Manufacturer of boisseries, dining rooms and auxiliary piece of furniture of classic style and of high quality. They offer three guarantee years for its furniture.

BAFRA S.L: Small company manufacturer of frames. It is a auxiliary company which is subcontracted by other companies. The production is mainly for national market and its customers are furniture companies of medium and high quality.

EGEO SHOES S.L: Shoes manufacturer for spare time for men, women and child. Quality shoes with its own trademark destined to national market and for other popular marks for the national and international market. Export is done through the sales channel of the other companies.

Division artesanal de mobiliario: Manufacturer of furniture with traditional finished of high quality. Small company focused in producing for a medium or high segment of the market mainly for national market although also for international market. Work under demand with Valsain wood of pine. They are focusing their production to high quality hotels.

SANTO TOMAS: Small company dedicated to manufacture boisseries and office furniture with classic style. Although part of the work requires traditional work their process is mechanised. Its market is national and international exporting mainly to Europe.

FEDERICO GINER: Manufacturer of school furniture which presents over the 50% of their production the rest of the production is dedicated to modern furniture for office and dinning rooms. The 65% of their production is dedicated to national market and the rest is dedicated mainly to European market.

VICENTE PUIG OLIVER S.A: Doors manufacturers with three main business units: sawmill, main factory and varnished plant. The 60% of their machinery is designed and built in the own factory. They are using numeric control machinery. They adapt the product to the market addressed and export to 23 countries over the world.

AGUSTIN PASTOR GOMIS S.A: small company dedicated to manufacture office furniture being their more important customers public organisations. They are focus on national market although they are becoming to launch their products in international markets mainly the European Union.

The industrial branch and background of the companies from which the results have been obtained have been specified. The quantity of the sample makes difficult to perform a


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correlation analysis with respect the type of manufacturing since it wouldn’t be representative of the sector. Anyway, the main results from the questionnaires answered is detailed in next sections.

6.1.1. Results from Section 1: General Data

It has been sent more than one hundred questionnaires among different logistics chains by means of several associations. More than 30 questionnaires have been received from Spain, United Kingdom and Denmark.

It has been received responses from 15 companies with less than 50 employees and from 15 companies with more than 50 employees. More than 95% of the companies to which has been sent the questionnaire were SMEs.

75% of the companies are manufacturers and 25% distribution companies.

The position of the personnel who have answered the questionnaires can be seen in the following graphic:

Position

14%7%

25%36%

14% 4%

Administration

Export manager

Logistic Director

Managing Director

ProductionDirector

Quality Director

Figure 8 Questionnaire answers

This means that the answers come from different positions inside the companies what gives us a wide overview of the use of this type of integrated management solutions inside the companies. The study has been conducted taking into account this classification, we have focused our study especially on managers, logistic and production directors.

6.1.2. Results from Section 1: Logistic environment

The sample actors interviewed were asked which of the logistics activities were more important for them. The answers have been multiple:


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Figure 9 Activities considered as very important

It is remarkable the high percentage of SME manufacturers that do not take into account the other parts of the supply chains that are outside their enterprises. However, following the questionnaires answers for the other sections, they are claiming a better control of its items over the overall supply chain. A great effort must be done not only on internal integration not but also on external integration.

6.1.2.1. Customer service and demand

Concerning the Customer service and demand, the first question has been on the current lead-time the companies are working with. The result of the answers can be seen in the following diagram.

Figure 10 Customer lead time

The lead-time highly depends on the product to be manufactured. The production & scheduling module jointly with the sales forecasting module could benefit in a greater extent those companies whose lead-times are currently longer than 15 days, assuming that these


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companies have a more complicated production and assembly process.

The next figure shows the level of customer satisfaction with its current lead times.

Customer satisfaction

8%

53%

35%

4% Not very satisfied

Satisfied

Quite satisfied

Very satisfied

Figure 11 Customer lead time satisfaction

As it can be seen in this diagram most part of the customers are satisfied with their lead-times, but this is the case only when this lead times are actually met.

An additional remark to be made on lead time is that it is considered by manufacturers as one of the main factors giving them a competitive edge.

Another important aspect to be studied in their current supply chains is the customer demand visibility with which they are currently working. The situation can be summarised in the following diagram.

Customer demand visibility

54%27%

19%Only orders

1 month planningvisibility

2-3 monthsplanning visibility

Figure 12 Customer demand visibility

From the sample, only 3 companies are using a demand analysis tool. One of them is using proprietary software and the other two are using spreadsheets.


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All the companies thought this kind of tool could be useful for their activities in the following terms:

It is necessary for your business

It could improve your customer service

It could increase your flexibility

It could increase your market share

6.1.2.2. Order processing

The customer order horizon for the companies interviewed is the following.

Time horizon

36%

44%

20%<1 week

>1..<4 weeks

>4 weeks

Figure 13 Customer order horizon

Concerning their internal Administrative Order Cycle Time the results have been the following:

Figure 14 Administrative order cycle time.


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With respect to customer order reception it must be stressed that only two companies have a special order-processing program integrated with their customers. Another two of them are using EDI (the companies have a small number of strong customers). And almost all the rest are using indistinctly fax, telephone or post.

The order processing into the own system is done in the 50% of the cases manually.

The question 11 has a surprising result as it shows us that the 36% of the companies studied do not confirm the commitment date to their customers.

6.1.2.3. Transport

Regarding transport, this section was thought to permit manufacturing and distribution companies describe the more frequent transport mode used, the way they contract it, the number of distribution companies they normally work with and the current problems they are facing due to transport. The results can be summarised as follows:

The transport made more frequently used is the road transport.

The 75% of the companies give the management of its transport to external distribution companies.

The 25% need to control the position of the vehicles.

The 63% are normally working with more than 3 distribution companies.

The 45% of the companies are receiving customers claims due to transport, the main representatives have been the following:

Delivery times.

Delays.

Breakdowns.

Final state of the cargo.

6.1.3. Results from Section 2: CPSM, CDM, CSM and CAM requirements

6.1.3.1. CHAMAN Production & Scheduling

The answers regarding Production and scheduling are not really informative. 75% respond that they use a production planning system and it seems that most of them are “home


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made” or delivered from small, local SW suppliers. The systems handles Production Order, Materials Requirements Planning and Production Planning. None applies dedicated scheduling.

The major advantage of the systems mentioned are the overview and the combined planning of both materials requirements and manufacturing capabilities.

Drawbacks mentioned focus on problems with adoption of standard tools, cost calculations, lack of scheduling capabilities for manpower and more technical issues, which have no interest as far as CHAMAN is concerned.

Required improvements are: Integration to administrative routines, data transfer, integration/communication with suppliers/customers, user friendliness, flexible GUI, finite capacity scheduling, scheduling with alternative routes, and scheduling of shared machines (work-centres).

6.1.3.2. CHAMAN Distribution & Logistics

This section has focused distribution companies and logistic operators to know their scope, their type of services, their size, percentage of subcontracted vehicles, technology used, messages interchanged with their fleet and customers, vehicle routing system used and people working in the planning and scheduling of the fleet. The results can be summarised as follows:

Over a sample of 25 answers the fleet size of these companies can be seen in the next graphic.

Size

60%20%

12%8%

1..10 trucks

11..50 trucks

51..100 trucks

>100 trucks

Figure 15 Fleet size

The 60% of these companies are working in international markets. And the most of their


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trips are to destinations more than 500 Km away from their origins. Most of these companies are servicing full and part loads indistinctly and only three companies are providing logistics services.

Regarding the communication systems with their vehicles, only the 35% of their vehicles are equipped with at least a cellular telephone. Only two companies are using a fleet monitoring system although in both cases this system controls the location of the vehicles. The vehicle routing, capacity optimisation and rescheduling is made manually.

All of them have considered very important the advent of fleet management systems in the distribution marketplace and foresee a great benefit with the integration with the different actors of the supply chain. The answers of the benefits this type of systems could report to these companies can be summarised as follows: "Better planning, control and monitoring of my fleet", "Better customer service, 80% of the problems solved, position of the cargo in real time", "Improvement in the time needed to prepare the loads". Regarding the current systems, the companies interviewed consider they are too expensive, do not respond to their needs and have too many parameters to be managed.

The types of messages they would like to exchange with their vehicles are the following:

Load orders.

Collection and Delivery results.

Delivery time, location.

Any other info concerning load and unload spots, routes, timetables, breakdowns, other incidents.

The type of information that should provide their customers is the following:

Load location: in the warehouse, routing and delivery.

Load status when it has been delivered.

Exact delivery time, expedition number.

Regarding the vehicle routing systems, these should provide the following features:

Not too many parameters -ease of use.

Capability to reschedule.

Capability to connect with current computer equipment.

Quick response


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Better service

Continuos information

6.1.3.3. CHAMAN Sales Forecasting

This section of the questionnaire was answered by twenty four companies. Of the six questions, three require a choice to be made and three required a short text answer.

Question 1 asked if the companies considered Sales Forecasting to be an important issue: 21 (87%) replied that it was an important issue.

Figure 16 Importance of Sales Forecasting module

Question 2 asked what data companies used for sales prediction. Approximately 50% responded 'Historical Sales Figures', and the remainder responded with 'Current trends in their Market Sector'.

Figure 17 Data used for sales prediction

Question 3 asked which forecasting techniques companies used. Nine companies responded 'Extrapolation', six 'Smoothing', and four didn't use data for sales prediction.


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Figure 18 Sales Forecasting techniques

Question 4 asked about the drawbacks involved. This produced a mixed response that can be summarised as:

Prediction becomes the objective

Limited use with new products

Uncertainty

Question 5 asked companies which computer software they used to support Sales Forecasting. One company uses Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, two companies use Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access databases, three companies use proprietary software, and the remainder use no software support at all.

Question 6 asked the companies what improvements they would like to see in sales forecasting software. The six responses received were:

1. Able to analyse the main parameters well.

2. Produces exact results and can guess customer aims.

3. Reliability, ease of use

4. Gives alarm signals, prediction error, autocorrective parameters, directly connects with customers via EDI

5. Provides realistic solutions.

6. Should take holidays into account.

It is clear that for all companies surveyed sales forecasting is an important issues and the


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companies use on an equal basis historical data and current market trends. Forecasting techniques used are generally simple with up to 1/3 using no defined technique at all. Software support is generally limited to simple spreadsheets. Three respondents used a propriety system at least one of which was based on a database application. In terms of future provision it is clear that increased reliability is a key factor.

6.1.4. Results from Section 2: Requirements for integrated system

This section of the questionnaire produced responses from twenty four companies.

Question 1 asked the companies to indicate the principle means of communication with their suppliers. Twenty two of the companies responded to the question, but none of them communicated by Phone, Post, or 'Other'.

Figure 19 Means of communication

Question 2 asked the companies to indicate the principle means of communication with their customers. Twenty one of the companies responded to the question, but none of them communicated by Phone, Post, or 'Other'.

Figure 20 Communications with customers

Question 3 asked companies about the type of information that they exchanged with


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suppliers. All twenty four companies responded to this question, but none of them exchanged Delivery Advice, Invoice, Prognosis Forecast, Production Plans, or Stocks information.

Figure 21 Exchanged information

Question 4 asked companies about the type of information that they exchanged with customers. Twenty three companies responded to this question, but none of them exchanged information on Stocks.

Figure 22 Information exchanged with customers

Question 5 asked the companies if they knew the use of short messages. All twenty four responded to this question, but only three answered 'Yes'.


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Figure 23 Knowledge of short messages

Currently communication between the company and both suppliers and customers is overwhelmingly by FAX with EDI taking very little of the traffic. It must be presumed that, at least in the short term supply chain partners who are not part of CHAMAN will continue to use this means of communication. With suppliers order enquiries form the largest component of the information exchanged with order management making up only approximately ¼ of the traffic. In an integrated supply chain management system it might be expected that this balance will change. With customers a much richer information profile is exchanged. Few companies make use of short messaging.

6.1.5. Results from Section 3: HW, SW and OS requirements

The hardware platform supposes a high investment for SMEs, so they do not want to make a totally new investment with the introduction of a new application. They have expressed the need of using general and scalable solutions. The next figure shows the current hardware platform for the companies studied but could be generalised to the SMEs in general.

HW platform

65%15%

20%PC-network

UNIX-Workstation/server

AS400

Figure 24 HW platform

The operating system used is in relation with the hardware platform installed in the company. The Microsoft, UNIX and OS/400 operating systems are used with respect the


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previous diagram.

Regarding the internal communication, no option arises above the others. The answers have been in the following range of applications: MS-mail, MS-Exchange, Lotus notes, AS400 Intranet.

In relation with external communication, it must be stressed that the 35% of the companies are using Internet and even EDI to interchange information and orders with their associated companies or customers. With the database management systems, there isn't an homogeneity on the answers, the more frequent ones are: Access, Oracle, Informix, DB2, Multibase.

The 80% of the companies are using proprietary applications for the enterprise management, comprising the areas of logistics, finance and production.

6.1.6. Results from Section 4: Additional Remarkable Comments

A general comment can be highlighted after the analysis of the returned questionnaires. The proposed integrated system should provide flexibility in the configuration parameters, being at the same time easy to use. It should also have extensive report-building capabilities that can easily retrieve information about the important data generated in the supply chain, e.g orders, cancellations, delivery times, etc. The information should be provided in a friendly manner both in numerical and graphic format.

6.2. Production managers Needs and Requirements

The production manager for a manufacturing enterprise in a supply chain is responsible for the right delivery and the right production price for a product.

From the interviews and studies following factors seems to be most important for the production manager:

Ensure competitive operations and efficiency

Ensure delivery accuracy for Just in Time delivery

Ensure effective handling of rush-orders and suddenly arisen situations

Improve customer satisfaction

Enhance customer responsiveness and reduce lead times.


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Provide flexibility to meet competitive challenges.

Reduce back-orders, overtime, “upsets” and confusions about “what to produce when and where”.

Reduce inventory and factory time, work-in-progress and manufacturing costs as well as scheduling effort.

Significantly improve utilisation of resources and financial performance.

On top of the above, the system should give a precise, comprehensive overview of orders and tasks to be executed, of resource utilisation and of both immediate and long-term performance. The system should be aimed at:

Total order handling and scheduling in Small and Medium sized discrete manufacturing Enterprises

Decentralised subsystem to total Enterprise Resource Planning systems with focus on the short-term scheduling and capacity adjustment.

Shop Floor control.

The system should also combine advanced automatic planning with manual interaction through an advanced graphical user interface and is a very effective tool for what-if analyses and order promising simulation.

6.3. Distribution managers Needs and Requirements

The distribution and especially the logistics operator companies must be integrated within the logistics chain they are working in. They should provide the necessary information to these actors in real time as a basis of an integrated supply chain management system.

As a result from the study conducted from the questionnaires and direct interviews to several logistics-related positions inside the enterprises the following factors need to be considered:

In general, all distribution companies have a number of customers who are divided in two types, the first ones are fixed or semi-fixed and the second ones are totally random. The destinations are even more uncertain so most companies have their own distribution network or associated companies to decrease the cost of individual trips. So design, configuration and schedule of the transport network is based on the historical demand and commercial agreements but they would be very interested in a


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graphical interface for the design and configuration of the transport network.

A crucial factor for a large number of transport companies is the optimisation of the free space in their vehicles. This fact makes critical the integration with other management process inside the company like the order processing which must take the control of the volume of the items, weights and any other information of interest for the transport of the loads. It is remarkable that all the companies contacted would like to have all the transport control through the order code. Usually a transport order comprises at least the following information: customer to be billed for service, type and size/weight of the cargo, addresses and time windows for pick-up and delivery. Additional information, which needs to be considered by the dispatch officer, such as places and names of the addresses and time limits are also contained in the order.. Depending on the schedule and the schedules already fixed, specific resources (trucks, drivers, etc.,) must be determined for the order and assigned to specific part of the transport. All these decisions must be optimised, keeping the costs of the transport company as low as possible and thus profit high.

In order to give a homogeneous service a good price policy must be defined. It is very important to take into account the possible subcontractors that can be used, their position, prices etc.. It has been identified that the companies that have a more sustainable growth are those who are able to know exactly the price they can apply to a new order in real time. It should be desirable for them to be able to act as a virtual company giving their customers a transport service commitment by knowing in real time the price that its sub-contracted distribution company may offer them for a given destination.

These points represent the basic information needed to improve the current state concerning the fleet management. The users contacted have defined as the current process or activities that can be improved the following:

Punctuality, providing delivery times in relation with the constraints provided by the rendezvous and adhering the delivery to the schedule given to the customers.

Possibility to issue orders that require transport of various products from many warehouses and the capability also to work with load parts having the real position of all the load in every stage (origin warehouse, initial leg, own warehouse, transport, intermediate warehouses, final destination etc).

The planning and vehicle routing is done in a great percentage manually, performing static solution leaving small flexibility in the addition of new orders or deviation from the planned route.


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As any intelligent control system, the CDM will must be able to provide a decision making support to the operator as a basis for the fleet management control. As far as fleet management control is concerned the decision making process must be able to take automatic actions in a certain set of specific situations, and be able to provide, at the same time, a large choice of data and decision possibilities to the other more general scenarios. The system must permit the operator to treat them interactively showing the consequences of his decision and the possible effects in the own distribution and in the overall supply chain.

To deal effectively with the internal and external problems associated with changes in the production system and physical distribution chain it is needed to synchronise the activities of multiple organisations in the logistics chain and feeding back necessary information to organisations in production and physical distribution sectors on a real time basis.

The next table shows the user needs summary that will be taking into account in the development of CDM:


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SYSTEM NAME : CHAMAN DISTRIBUTION MODULE

STAKEHOLDERSAND ROLES

USER NEEDS SUMMARY IMPLICATIONS FOR SYSTEM DESIGN

Direct users

Traffic Operators.

Planners.

Reduce the driving distance and time.

Optimise the use of every vehicle and of the complete fleet.

Optimise the vehicle size and its volume. Empty space management.

Be able to manage the cargo in several warehouses.

Takes advantage of real time information.

Efficient vehicle routing and capacity optimisation application.

Mobile Data Communication and Global Positioning System.

Capability to integrate several control centres working co-ordinately.

Indirect users

Customers.

Truck drivers

Complete visibility of the cargo with respect location and times.

Last changes without additional rates.

Status of the cargo. Customer satisfaction on delivery.

User friendly interface, knowing the exact position.

Bar coding for each parcel.

Time granularity for messaging in the order of seconds.

Dynamic algorithms, capability to re-schedule the trips.

Electronic management of the written receipt.


Other actors in the supply chain

Better customer service.

Integrated data in all the stages of the supply chain.

Optimise the order management, reducing order processing time.

Tracking and tracing systems in the complete transport chain.

EDI and EDIFACT messages.

Capability to interchange information between the fleet management system and order processing databases.



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6.4. Sales Managers Needs and Requirements

It clear from respondents answers to the questionnaire that almost all companies are dissatisfied with existing sales prediction methods. Typical problems found include “Does not get all the marketplace reality”, “Don't get all the variables”,” Don't get market trends” , “Limited use in new products, market trends, uncertainty “ and “The customers trend to be very optimistic with their demand”. This is not surprising when the choice of forecasting methods is considered which are very simple trend line analysis methods. In the modern marketing environment customer demand has become increasingly volatile with competition more global requiring more sophisticated forecasting tools.

When asked what features they would like to see in the sales prediction tool respondents picked reliability, ease of use, auto corrective functionality, alarm signalling and analysis tools for market effects as the main criteria.

The CHAMAN sales forecasting tool should respond to these user requirements by developing a tool which has:

High quality baseline forecasting

Optimal parameter estimation with explanation

Optimal outlying detection and correction.

Manual adjustment to cover special ‘events’ e.g. holidays and special promotions.

Full reporting

Error estimation

Customer and product views of forecasts

Retrieve stored forecasts and revise stored forecasts

Comparison of forecasts with actual performance

A high quality user interface.


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SYSTEM NAME : CHAMAN SALES MODULE

STAKEHOLDERS

AND ROLES

USER NEEDS SUMMARY IMPLICATIONS FOR SYSTEM DESIGN

Direct users

Sales managers.

Retail managers.

High quality baseline forecasting

Optimal parameter estimation with explanation

Customer and product views of forecasts

Retrieve stored forecasts and revise stored forecasts

Comparison of forecasts with actual performance

Advanced forecasting algorithms incorporating belief systems.

Near real time point of sale information.

High quality GUI with advanced graphics display facility for forecasts & belief systems.

Indirect users

Production managers

Distribution managers

Analysis of sales patterns with short term predictions.

Medium to long term predictions

Current summaries of sales patterns with overview analysis.

Uncertainty estimates on sales predictions.


Other actors in the supply chain

Sales predictions to inform planning. Market trend analysis tools to be developed.



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6.5. Supply chain manager Needs and Requirements

At the highest level the supply chain manager requires two complementary functions: firstly the ability to view the complete supply chain and secondly the capability to ‘drill down’ for detailed information on the performance of any individual supply chain member. In overview the system will display system network nodes including suppliers, manufacturing centres, warehouses, distribution centres, transportation routes and customers. This display could be either superimposed on a map or presented as a schematic network.

When over viewing the complete supply chain the manager will be presented with just sufficient information to assess member performance in terms of current activity, target achievement etc. At this level this system must be capable of displaying ‘alerts’ both for situations which are causing a critical problem with supply continuity but also for situations which may cause a critical problem in the short to medium term.

The ‘Drill down’ capability will enable the supply chain manager to view the operation of the supply chain member at several different levels of detail. Specifically this will enable the manager to identify the cause of any alert and allow the ‘what if’ capabilities of the CHAMAN administration module to be used to solve the alert. This capability is also required for responding to changing market forecasts.

From the users point of view a key feature of the administration module is its ability to handle a very large volume of data that is presented to the user in a form which is immediately understandable and complete at the current level in the information hierarchy without burdening the user with unnecessary detail. Navigation through the hierarchy should be intuitive and simple to implement. The customer also requires the CHAMAN system to interact seamlessly with other software products that are currently in use(e.g from the questionnaires “Ease of transfer data to other programs.” or “Integration with other areas, finance, etc”.


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7. SMES SPECIFIC CONSTRAINTS

In modern economy, there is a concentration of large companies and, at the same time, a strong presence of small and medium enterprises.

Next table shows the percentage of SMEs in European countries. These figures show the importance of SMEs for European economy.

Country SMEs LargeBELGIUM 98,1% 2,0%

DENMARK 98,5% 1,5%

GERMANY 97,5% 2,5%

GREECE 97,8% 2,1%

SPAIN 99,4% 0,6%

FRANCE 98,4% 1,6%

ITALY 99,7% 0,3%

LUXEMBOURG 95,6% 4,4%

NETHERLANDS 97,4% 2,5%

AUSTRIA 94,2% 5,8%

PORTUGAL 99,3% 0,8%

FINLAND 98,1% 1,9%

SWEDEN 98,1% 1,9%

UK 98,1% 1,9%

ICELAND 95,5% 4,5%

NORWAY 98,2% 1,8%

Next table shows the number of companies sorted by the number of employees in Spain.

Self-employed From 1 to 10 From 11 to 250 More than 250

Number of companies

1.293.868 478.532 128.914 3.160

% over the whole 67,84% 25,03% 6,57% 0,6%

SMEs are facing high risk in the current market due to the uncertainty of the environment, necessity of quick reactions against competitors, inability to carry out ambitious projects, necessity to continually demonstrate their capacity of solvency to stay in the


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market…

SMEs use all means to overcome these specific problems, among them the introduction of new technologies could reduce their costs, agility in business and increase capacity to penetrate in the global market. The combined and integrated use of technologies like telematics and computing open a true challenge for SMEs to be more competitive.

SMEs have started to apply since long time the PCs, which permits them to process the information more speedily. However, many SMEs stop there without taking into account that, although it is important to process the information speedily, it is more important the flow of that information through the company and why not through the supply chain. Here is where CHAMAN may help these small and medium companies to integrate the company information internally and externally making them more competitive.

Currently most SMEs have no integration between departments so commercial, purchasing & logistics, production, deliveries, administration and technical services are working individually and some processes which requires co-ordination are continually presenting problems between them.

CHAMAN processes like order monitoring will permit all actors involved to have the information as required in time. In this way

Commercial department will introduce the order data: customer, date, quantity, prices, etc.

Purchasing department plan its purchases having previous information in the system.

Production department may consult the system to plan their job.

Transport department introduces the expected delivery date.

Commercial staff may consult to answer customer questions

Administration takes data to print delivery notes, invoices, etc.

Technical service may consult to schedule the installation and plan their resources.

CHAMAN will permit SMEs to integrate all this internal information but also integrate the company in its supply chain, which will permit to share information (production scheduling, stocks, capacity, incoming orders, etc) between other members of the supply chain.


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This solution is possible for most of the companies of more than 10 employees which are more or less organised in the way described. However, there are a huge number of companies with less than 10 employees whose constraints are still more accentuated. In spite of this fact, this type of small companies will be able to be integrated in its supply chain by means of CHAMAN.

The minimum hardware and software facilities required will be an internet connection and having the possibility to interchange electronic mail. Having these minimum requirements a small company will be able to be integrated to its supply chain through CHAMAN with a set of minimal functionalities.

In the furniture sector, where CHAMAN will be tested, the orders will come to these small companies through the electronic mail with a format, which will be established a priori between the partners. From this moment, a set of messages will be interchanged between the supplier and manufacturer, which will permit the CAM to have a complete view of the supply chain with the time granularity required.

A number of messages are envisaged: request for capacity, sending order, order acceptance, order scheduled, 50% of the order produced, order produced, order delivered, etc. Obviously the content of these messages will depend on the sector but will permit small companies to participate in an integrated supply chain.


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8. USER GROUPS

This section presents the organisation and institutions that have been involved in the development of the first phase of the project work plan. We are going to start by the members of the Consortium following by the group of users contacted.

The following companies form the Consortium:

ETRA: Spanish company skilled in advanced computing and electronic technologies for traffic and transport control systems. It is an industrial SME with strong research and development activity. Its business is real time control and information systems in the area of transport. ETRA holds a market leadership in Spain, and is currently involved in a diversification process targeting to freight transport and logistics. The role of CHAMAN within this strategic effort is crucial.

PDC: Danish company that has created a responsive planning and scheduling IT solutions for industry. This company holds a technological leadership in the area of manufacturing in Denmark.

UOS: the University of Sunderland has focused its research in supporting European Industry. The school of computing and information systems has research groups performing market-driven research in decision systems and mathematical modelling applied to logistics.

VG: Vidal Grau Muebles is a high quality furniture manufacturer making items for furnishing the home (bedroom and dining room suites, halls, complements, etc). They have been involved in the definition of user requirements and identification of system requirements. At the final stage of the project they will demonstrate CHAMAN system and will evaluate it in their own facilities.

d line international AS trade in a range of stainless steel fittings and sanitary appliances. The entire range is designed by Knud Holsher, and it is based on a principle of purity, minimalism and functionality. They have been involved in the definition of the user requirements in their sector and domain identifying specific characteristics that have been probed different between the north and south countries of Europe. Dline will demonstrate CHAMAN in their facilities testing it with some of their suppliers.Both of them represent relevant examples illustrating the SME scenario in the logistic area.

FEOEIM is a federation, which represents around 1000 furniture manufacturers. This guarantees the generality and transferability of CHAMAN results.


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Figure 25 CHAMAN Consortium

A number of very interested companies have been contacted through FEOEIM and the association related to the former one. The Consortium expects to keep informed this user group in order to assess the project progress in terms of technical constraints and user needs.


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ETRAADL FEOEIM

Manufacturing users groupTransport users group

CHAMAN USERS GROUP

SALVESSEN EXIT

ALABAU VIDAL

CONFORTEC

F.GINER

PICO

FEVAMA

D LINE VGConsortium end-users

Figure 26 CHAMAN User Group

A wider group of users has been contacted through the distribution of questionnaires. A database has been created with the results of the questionnaires answered and further surveys will be obtained from these interested potential users. The way of contacting this group of interested users has been done through the correspondent federations and associations of the different sectors what has successfully demonstrated the profitability of this kind of partner to involved a great number of companies.

The work done has been conducted through the development of the questionnaire among the Consortium members by means of internal meeting and users interviews. This questionnaire was distributed to FEOEIM who send the questionnaire to a group of interested companies. The generality of the results has been assured by the involvement of ADL (Association for the Development of Logistics) who send the questionnaire to a different group of companies especially in the field of logistic and distribution.


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FEOEIMADL

Results from more than 30 companies

PROJECT QUESTIONNAIRE

DEVELOPING PARTNERS

Figure 27 Questionnaire results


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9. DEMONSTRATION SITES DESCRIPTION

9.1. Dline international as

d line international AS trade in a range of stainless steel fittings and sanitary appliances. The entire range is designed by Knud Holsher, and it is based on a principle of purity, minimalism and functionality. Today, d line can offer a uniform design throughout the building. d line's markets are prestigious buildings in the private and the public sectors, which are reached through architects, designers, builders and contractors. d line has been present in this market for 24 years, and today the company is represented in 40 countries. d line’s product range consists partly of goods in stock and partly of customised products, which are manufactured to order. d line is a trading company and does not manufacture its own products. All production is carried out through sub-suppliers. The largest sub-suppliers (6-8 businesses) have a business relationship with d line which resembles a partnership. There is a sliding scale of suppliers down to simple suppliers (trade supplies). Today, d line uses the financial and stock management system Navision, which is to be used as a basis for the development of the system for d line. d line’s representatives all use different systems, and thus communication with these representatives has to be carried out via d line’s homepage on the Internet. d line’s six largest suppliers all use Navision, and one of them has established an on-line connection with d line. At present, none of them use a production planning system which can be connected to the system. Communication with suppliers will usually be carried out by means of a permanent line or via the Internet.

9.1.1. Customer order handling

Orders from customers, normally agents, are received by fax. The structure is not specifically described but the fields are the following: (*) per item line

Pos Field

1 Agent ID

2 Ref

3 Delivery time

4* Delivery terms

5* Item No

6* Item text

7* Quantity

Table 13 Customer order data


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Orders are entered in d lines order system (Navigator/Navision) in the sales office. Items no. are checked, configuration is controlled. Orders are confirmed using std. delivery times. Order confirmation is send by fax. (*) per item line

Pos Field

1 Order ID

2 Agent ID

3 Ref

4 Delivery time

5* Delivery terms

6* Item No

7* Item text

8* Quantity

9* Unit price

Table 14 Order inserted in Dline system

Delivery date is normally by end of a week; delivery terms often ex. works. If special delivery time is requested, then delivery time is confirmed later, based on available production capacity. d line wants to introduce a new system where the agent can enter orders directly via a homepage. Orders from the homepage should enter a confirmation procedure and thereafter be transferred to the general order handling system (Navigator/Navision).

9.1.2. Production order handling

Sales orders are transformed into stock and production orders, depending on available stock. Standard items are normally kept in stock, but could be produced directly to order in case of large quantities or an out of stock situations.

Manufacturer is selected, normally based on product alone, but in some cases also base on both product and available capacity, as far as d line knows this capacity. The choice is often restricted by available tools and materials, which are normally owned and supplied by d line.

Orders to manufactures have following structure: (*) per item line


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Pos Field

1 Production Order ID

2 Ref

4 Delivery time

5* Delivery terms

6* Item No

7* Item text

8* Quantity

9* Drawing no. / version

Table 15 Orders to manufacturers

Delivery date is often one week before accepted delivery to the customer. Drawings contain all necessary production information, materials, tools etc. Orders to manufactures are normally faxed. E-mail is started to be used and EDI might be a solution. Orders are created in Navigator/Navision and output here from is faxed. Another alternative could be production orders created as CAPS orders by d line and send to the suppliers CAPS system.

The manufacturer confirm the order by:

Order accepted

Materials available

Delivery date

If positions cannot be accepted new delivery date is stated with comments, f. ex. “ Materials required”.

9.1.3. Current information

The manufacturer is expected to give notice of any changes for accepted production orders.

This information is given to d line either per phone or fax or e-mail. no specific format. d line register this information in the order system and may chose to ignore this information or transform it to a similar notice to the customer by fax or e-mail.


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9.1.4. Shipping

From manufacturer to d line

d line manufactures are mostly placed inside Denmark, some outside in European countries as Germany, Poland and Latvia, and a few overseas as Japan and Taiwan.

Danish manufactures are normally within a driving distance of 3-4 hours, e.g day to day deliveries by truck. The transportation is normally organised by the manufacturer but d line has also it’s own small truck, that can pick up priority orders etc.

Manufactures outside Denmark send their product by ship or flight. The transport is organised by the manufacturer and is normally carried out by a carrier.

In case op rush orders carriers as UPS and DHL may be used (only manufactures outside Denmark).

From d line to customer (agent)

Deliveries from d line to agents outside Denmark is done by carriers. In case op rush orders carriers as UPS and DHL may be used.

Delivery quantities are boxes or partly opened boxed, “Scantainer” (small container) or ½ - full pallets.

9.1.5. Forecasts

d line makes forecast per product groups and specific products, normally products which are carried in stock (at least to some degree).

Forecasts are used as basis for purchase of raw materials (stainless steel) in different dimensions. Forecasts are carried out by the purchase department and are based on last year statistics and own internal estimations. The work is done once a year and updated using spreadsheet.

9.1.6. Demonstration

A proposal for a d line demonstration is:

At d line:

Sales orders are entered in d line administrative system (Navigator/Navision).


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Alternative: the d line home page order page could be used.

In both cases: d line must enter sales order data to CAM either manually or as on a output from Navigator/Navision in form of an transaction or an output file. Sales order updates are done similar.

Production orders are created in the d line administrative system (Navigator/Navision) and/or in a d line CAPS installation. d line must enter production order data to CAM either manually or as on a output from Navigator/Navision and/or CAPS in form of an transaction or an output file.

Production order updates are done similar. Shipping information for both supply and delivery is entered as updates, for example:

shipped + date + carrier

received + date

Agents:

Selected no. of agents should be allowed to have access through internet to relevant information from CAM

Manufactures:

Selected manufactures might have a CAPS installation, which receives orders from CAM.

These orders are the planned and the CAPS create an updates transaction to CAM.

CAPS might check materials availability in a traditional MRP or stock control system (f. ex. Navigator/Navision because these systems are commonly used by d line vendors).

CAPS order status changes should be transmitted to CAM on a transactional basis.

CAPS should be able to calculate capacities per product/machine group and transmit these to CAM. With the following information: (*) per product/capacity group

Pos Field

1* Manufacturer ID

2* Product/capacity group


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3* Capacity in hours per day

4* Period from

5* Period to

Table 16 Data to CAM

Figure 28 Dline environment

9.2. Vidal Grau Muebles

9.2.1. Description

VG: Vidal Grau Muebles is a high quality furniture manufacturer making items for furnishing the home (bedroom and dining room suites, halls, complements, etc) with contemporary design based on traditional quality materials such as wood, metal, glass, marble and including other more innovative elements such as methacrylate and moulded and treated resin mixtures. At present VGM is undergoing a large scale industrial restructuring process which enable it to offer a standard certified quality for all its products, being certified ISO-9002 in 1998.

Our products are elements for the whole furnishing of home, with a consolidated


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decorative character and a high design in forms, detailed finish, which differentiate their furniture with the rest of the sector. Materials are naturals and high quality. Special attention is paid to new materials, the objective is to obtain new textures and superficial finish of greater quality.

9.2.2. Demonstration environment

Vidal Grau Muebles is representative of the sector of high quality furniture companies in Spain, that receives approximately between 50% and 60% of their total volume of sales from the three most important international furniture fairs: Valencia, Milano and Cologne.

Therefore, VGM is facing to a demand characterised by manufacturing against a previously assured set of orders obtained in these international fairs. The rest of the orders come directly from the retailers. Concerning these retailers, it is worth to say that most furniture retailers in Eastern Europe and Asia are equipped with Internet facilities, this is not the case for Western Europe retailers.

In both of them, the order reception is done mainly by fax, although some orders are confirmed by phone, these are requested by fax. An expert, who knows all the products and its specific codes, does the order processing.

For each order, this expert:

Looks for customer code, creating it in case it did not exist.

Looks for items’ code.

Introduces the codified order in the system.

Introduces the request date by the customer.

Commits the order. Yes in the case the customer has opened a credit.

In parallel, it is necessary to have market requirements so that is able to build a preliminary production program. From this program, it will be transmitted to suppliers components planning. Vendors and suppliers, with that information, request to the second supply level their production needs.

Once started, the Manufacturing activity, new production, or procurement/purchase program, will be planned according to the demand trend using CSM. This information must meet customer requirements.


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Next diagram shows the processes and flow of information that will be managed internally at VGM when CHAMAN will be installed.

Market Requirements Customer Order

Sales Plan

Manufacturing Plan

Product Program

XXX Requirements

Suppliers

Process Resource Plan

Order to Supplier

Point of Sales

Customer Order toMFS

Schedulevs.

Capacity

OrderCommit

Order to beProduced

End Of Line

To DistributionModule

ProductStructure

Inventory

SupplierCommit

Delivery toMFS

Tentative OrderCommit

I_S

I_MFG

I_PROD

I_PROC

I_PROC


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The current process of order processing is as follows:

At a given month (M) the commercial department is receiving the orders to be delivered the month (M+2), once the value of the orders arrive a pre-established volume of sales the month is closed with respect the commercial department and the requirements of production are established. From this date that in normal conditions is 9 or 10 of each month, the incoming orders are introduced in the system to be served on the month M+3 (following the example).

CAM module will take into account each incoming order when it is received although it takes some days until it is checked the capacity. In this way, the supply chain controlled by Vidal Grau can gain in the best case one month, which will be lead to a better service to customers.

Following with the needs of production, it is normally produced at the middle of each month what will be manufactured at the end of next month. Therefore, the material explosion and consequently the suppliers’ orders are produced in this phase.

In order to depict as clearly as possible the situation, we are going to describe the main raw and intermediate materials needed in the manufacturing and/or picking/pack process realised by VGM. The 80% of the orders contain one type of these materials

Material description Supplier lead time (in days)

Raw metal material 5..8

Resins 20..25

Resins Post-treatment 10

Building wood 60

Turner 35..40

Other wood type 30..60

Table 17 Lead time per product

An integrated supply chain management in this specific supply chain will reduce the time, quality and flexibility of the whole process. Especially, the last item deserves special attention due to the importance of this type of material in their production process and the difficulties they are facing. The situation is the following (see figure below).


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Figure 29 Flow of wood material in VGM environment

They have an important wood supplier (Supplier A) that is working with 20 days of lead-time, so once VGM makes the order the supplier A is sending the wood material in normal conditions in 20 days but some of the products do not go directly to VGM, some of them in proportion 65%, 20% and 15% go to other suppliers B and C that perform special treatment of the wood and send to VGM. In addition, some of 65% come to VGM the 10% and 20% must go to suppliers B and C who after a treatment returns the item to VGM. An integrated management is needed among these companies to optimise the supply chain of Vidal Grau Muebles.


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10. GLOSSARY

10.1. Glossary of Acronyms

AI Artificial Intelligence

AOCT Administrative Order Cycle Time

ATT Advanced Transport Telematics

CAM CHAMAN Administration Module

CDM CHAMAN Distribution Module

CPSM CHAMAN Production and Scheduling Module

CHAMAN Advanced Tools for Integrated Supply Chain Management in European SMEs

EC Electronic Commerce

EDI Electronic Data Interchange

EDIFACT Electronic Data Interchange For Administration Commerce and Transport

ETRA Electronic Trafic S.A

EU European Union

FEOEIM Spanish Federation of Furniture Manufacturers

GPS Global Positioning System

GUI Graphical User Interface

ISO International Standard Organisation

IT Information Technology

JIT Just In Time

MRP Manufacturing Resource Planning


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PDC Prolog Development Center

RTD Research Transport Development

SCI Standard Compliant Interface

SME Small and Medium Enterprise

STEP Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data

UG User Group

UOS University of Sunderland

VGM Vidal Grau Muebles


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11. BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. CODE Consortium, Guidebook for the User Needs Analysis, CODE TR 1103, February 1998.

2. Ronald M. Ballon, Business Logistics Management, Prentice-Hall 1992.

3. Task Force Transport Intermodality, Diagnosis Report, Part 2, Freight, TFI/004/96.

4. Transport Research, COST 310 (EUR 15129 EN). Freight transport logistics, Final report of the action.

5. Transport Research, COST 320 (EUR 15173 EN). The impact of EDI on transport, Final report of the action.

6. Production & Inventory control Handbook, 3rd edition, James H. Greene editor, McGraw-Hill, 1997

7. Supply Chain Management, The Basis and Beyond, William C. Copacino, The St. Lucie Press/APICS, 1997

8. Supercharging Supply Chains, G. Tyndall, C. Gopal, W. Partsch, J. Kamuaff, Ernst & Young, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998

9. APICS dictionary, 8th edition, APICS 1995

10. “De syv principper i Supply Chain Management, Logistik Nyt 10, Nov. 1998

11. The Supply Chain Advantage, Seminar notes, Ernst & Young, 1998

12. Enterprise Supply Chain Management, APICS journal, September 1998

13. E-Supply Chain, APICS journal, August 1998

14. Supply Chain Planning and Synchronization, APICS, June 1998

15. Global Supply Chain Management Benchmarking Study, KPMG Management Consulting 1998


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12. ANNEX

This appendix contains the questionnaire issued to more than 30 companies around Europe (Spain, Denmark, UK). The information reported in the questionnaires and the ones gathered from direct interviews have been used in the deliverable to deepen and complete the study conducted in this workpackage.


CHAMAN- 26.805 15/061/99

Deliverable 1.1: User requirements CHAMAN/WP1/Version 2.11.3

CHAMANAdvanced tools for integrated supply

CHAin MANagement in European SME's

AN INTEGRATED SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Dear Sirs,

CHAMAN is a Project supported by European Commission’s within the framework of the Information Technologies Programme.

The CHAMAN´s purpose is to develop an integrated and distributed way of controlling the supply chain. CHAMAN will integrate a set of advanced tools addressing the management of the whole supply chain such us production and scheduling, sales forecasting and distribution.

The Project is analysing the user needs, trying to understand the capacities and limitations of a system's intended users and actors involved in the supply chain, their needs desires for the future. In order to guarantee CHAMAN’s success we request your collaboration by filling in this questionnaire and sending as much comments and ideas as you have concerning the supply chain management.

By answering this questionnaire, you will gain privileged access to information on the project progress and achievements.

Please respond to the questionnaire not later than November 20th 1998 and return to

ETRA

Mr Ramón Ferri

Tres Forques 147

(46.014),Valencia-SPAIN

Tel +34 6 379 63 62

Fax +34 6 350 32 34

Thank you for your time and co-operation.

Please tick this box if you do not want to receive future information about the development of the project.

Project nº 26.805 CHAMAN Questionnaire Page 87/100

CHAMAN User needs and requirements 1

Section 1 GENERAL DATA

O R G A N I S A T I O N D A T A

Ref. Nº_____

1) Name of the company or institution:_______________________________________

2) Is your organisation an SME?

YES NO Number of employees:

<= 50

> 50

Turnover:

3) Type of organisation: Please tick

Manufacturing Company

Distribution Company

Retail

Researchers

Other, please specify___________________________________________

3) Address_____________________________________________________________

4) City____________________________Country______________________________

5) Telephone Number______________Fax Number____________________________

6) Email address_______________________ Please, click if you haven’t

7) Contact Person________________________________________________________

8) Position inside the organisation___________________________________________

1 This questionnaire has been designed trying to cover the point of view of final users (i.e. Logistic department, Supply/Purchase department). Anyway we will appreciate the opinions of any other kind of user. For this reason it is possible you find some questions that are not applicable to your particular case, due to this the whole questionnaire must be answered on a “If applicable” base.


L O G I S T I C E N V I R O N M E N T

1. Rank the following logistic activities in order of importance for your own company.

Customer service and demand

Order processing

Transport

Inventory; stocks & manufacturing process

Other, please specify...

Customer service and demand

2. Which is your current LEAD TIME?

< 7 days

> 8 < 15

> 15 < 30

> 30

3. According to the information you have, please evaluate the level of your customer satisfaction with your current lead time ( 1 not satisfied at all; 5 very satisfied)

1 2 3 4 5

4. Which kind of visibility do you have of your customer demand:

Only Orders

1 Month planning visibility

2-3 months visibility

On Line request

Other

5. Are you using any Demand Analysis tool?

YES NO If Yes: Which One?

6. If you are not using any Market/Demand analysis tool, What do you think about this kind of facility: (please tick all correct options)


Is necessary for your business Could improve your customer service Could increase your flexibility Could increase your market share You do not see any benefit using it

Order process

7. What is your customers order horizon: (order to delivery time). < 1 week

> 1 < 4 weeks

> 4 weeks

8. Which is your internal Administrative Order Cycle Time ( since you receive your customer order till you put it in production)

1 day

> 1 < 3 days

> 4 < 7 days

> 7 days.......how many: ...............

9. How do you receive your customer orders: Post

Telephone

Fax

Internet

EDI

Other

10. How do you process customer orders into your local system: You do not have IS support

Manually

Directly by EDI from the customer

Other

11. Do you confirm your commitment date to your customers?

YES NO

12. How do you confirm your customer orders: Post

Telephone


Fax

Internet

EDI

Other

Transport

13. Which type of transports are you using: Truck

Rail

Air

Ship

Courier/mail

Your own transport

14. Transport is contracted

By you. Is always the same company? YES NO By your customer

15. If you are a manufacturer do you manage your own distribution

YES NO If yes, which kind of equipment do you require?

16. How many carriers do you work with?

Only 1

2-3

More than 3

17. Do you decide the routing?

YES NO 18. Do you use...?

Complete trucks

Groupage

19. Do you have customers' claims due to transport?

YES NO


20. If YES, give the main representatives

Inventory; stocks & manufacturing process

21. Indicate your main manufacturing strategy

Make to order only

Make primarily to order but maintain a minimum stock level

Manufacture to a predicted sales plan (large stock levels)

Other (specify)

22. Do you have a distributed manufacturing capability

No

Yes

If yes number of sites ……………….

23. Do you operate several distribution centres

No

Yes

If yes number of sites ……………………

24. What % of your business is

Local

Regional

National

International


Section 2 USER REQUIREMENTS

S A L E S F O R E C A S T I N G

1) Is sales forecasting an important issue for your company?

YES NO (If the answer is no go to section 3)

2) On what data do you base your sales predictions?

Historical sales figures. Over how many years....

Current trends in your market sector

Global indicators (interest rates, GDP, etc.)

Other.

3) What forecasting techniques do you use ?

Extrapolation (e.g. polynomial trends)

Smoothing (e.g. Weighted averages)

Box – Jenkins methods

A.I. techniques (e.g. Expert Systems, Neural Nets)

Other

4) What are their drawbacks?

5) What, if any, software support do you use?

6) What improvements would you like to see in sales forecasting software?


P R O D U C T I O N & S C H E D U L I N G

1) Do you know any Production and Scheduling system?

YES NO If the answer is YES: Which one/s?

2) What are their advantages?


4) Do you apply any application for the next processes?

Production Order

Materials Requirements Planning

Production Planning

Scheduling

5) Which improvements would you require on a Production and Scheduling System?


D I S T R I B U T I O N & L O G I S T I C S

1) What is the scope of your company?

Urban area

Provincial, Regional

National, in your own country

International

2) What kind of service do you provide

Full loads

Multimodal

Groupage

Courier.

Logistics services.

3) Which is your size ?

1-10 Vehicles

>11 < 50

>51 < 100

>100

4) What is the percentage of your own vehicles with respect the subcontracted ones?

5) A. Have your vehicles cellular telephone GSM? B. Do you oblige to your subcontracted ones?

A. YES NO B. YES NO

6) What is percentage of vehicles of less than7,5 tons?

7) Do you know any fleet scheduling system?

YES NO If the answer is YES: Which one/s?


8) What are their advantages?


10) Which improvements would you require on a fleet scheduling System?

11) Which types of messages would you require with the fleet?

12) What type of information would you like to offer to your customers?

13) Would you like a route optimisation system with respect the loads and rendezvous?. Which characteristics would you desire for this system?

14) How do you manage your orders?

Automatically Manually How many persons are in charge of the orders management in your

company?

15) How many persons are in charge of the traffic control in your company?


I N T E G R A T E D S U P P L Y C H A I N M A N A G E M E N T

1) What is your principle means of communication with your suppliers

Fax

Phone

Post

EDI

Internet

Other___

2) What is your principle means of communication with your customers

Fax

Phone

Post

EDI

Internet

Other___

3) What type of information do you exchange with your suppliers?

Order inquiries

Orders

Order confirmation

Order monitoring

Delivery advice

Invoice

Prognosis, forecast

Production plans

Stocks


4) What type of information do you exchange with your customers?

Order inquiries

Orders

Order confirmation

Order monitoring

Delivery advice

Invoice

Prognosis, forecast

Production plans

Stocks

5) Do you know the use of short messages?

Yes NO


Section 4 COMPUTING REQUIREMENTS

H A R D W A R E P L A T F O R M

IT platform

Logistics:Sales, InvoicingInventory, Purchasing, Shipping

Finance Production Other

HardwarePC, PC-network, UNIX-workstation/server, Minicomputer, AS400, Mainframe, other Operating SystemDOS, OS/2, Windows 3,x, 95, 98, NT, UNIX, OS/400, otherLAN NetworkEthernet, Token Ring, otherInternal communicatione-mail, MS-mail, MS-Exchange, Lotus-notes, Intranet, otherExternal communicationEDI, Internet, otherDatabaseOracle, Informix, DB/2, Proprietor DB, otherApplicationSAP, Baan, Proprietor, other


Section 4 ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

1) Do you have any other requirements or comments about supply chain management?


Documents

Document4