Eridania transforms the Supply Chain: the evolution of the Demand Planning with ComplEtE®

Eridania, a leading Italian company in the sugar and sweeteners sector, is setting new performance standards in terms of synergy between business functions, efficiency of the entire supply chain and support for the decision-making process with the implementation of the ComplEtE® solution by DGS.

Founded in 1899, Eridania stands today as the main Italian player in its sector, standing out for innovation, sustainability and a strong commitment to research and development.

The company is active both in the retail market, where it offers a wide range of products intended for large-scale distribution, and in the industrial market: the coexistence of these two channels, with profoundly different dynamics and needs, increases the complexity of managing supply chain processes.

In this context, Eridania has chosen the ComplEtE® solution in the first step of a broader transformation process of its supply chain, aimed at reviewing the Demand Planning process and supporting tools.

The Demand Planning, a process that quantifies future customer demand, represents a constant challenge for companies that wish to satisfy their market while maintaining high operational efficiency. The ability to accurately forecast demand has positive effects on the entire supply chain: production is planned using reliable data, optimizing inventory, improving the level of customer service and rationalizing the use of resources, containing costs.

The initiative, which involved various company functions, included an initial assessment phase to evaluate the as-is process and the corresponding critical issues and opportunities for improvement, on the basis of which the to-be configuration was designed, together with Eridania’s business.

Once the review of the process was completed, the Mathematical Demand and Collaborative Demand modules of the ComplEtE® solution were implemented, which ensured full coverage of the two fundamental requirements of the to-be Demand Planning process: on the one hand, the ability to correctly analyze the demand history and elaborate, using advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, an accurate forecast of future demand; on the other, the orchestration of a collaborative flow of statistical forecast review involving the entire commercial structure, from sales agents to Sales Management.

The next steps of the transformation initiative will include a progressive extension of the solution to cover other supply chain planning processes, appropriately reconfigured with respect to best practices and business needs.

To learn more about ComplEtE®, click here.