Archived Articles

December 2008: SupplyChainBrain.com (Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies)
Forecasting, Demand Planning in a Difficult Economy
A formal consensus gathering process within a company can capture vital input from all disciplines that can adjust a statistical forecast to arrive at a better demand plan. “The consensus forecast outweighs the statistical one,” says [Trevor] Miles [of Kinaxis]. “Our users are increasingly confident that their managers and their customers are better able to tell them where demand is going than any statistical forecast.”
December 2008: SupplyChainBrain.com (Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies)
ERP or Best-of-Breed? The Question is the Same, But the Answer May Not Be
“ERP vs. best-of-breed is still a relevant question that comes up with our clients on a regular basis,” he [Jim Shepherd, senior vice president-research at AMR Research, Boston] says. “We hardly ever see companies embracing a total best-of-breed strategy as might once have been the case, but they often look to best-of-breed vendors to solve specific and particularly complex problems.”
October 2008: Managing Automation
Kinaxis Launches Program to Lure i2 Customers
Early in September, Kinaxis reacted to the latest deal in the steadily consolidating supply chain software market by offering current i2 customers an aggressive incentive to sign up for RapidResponse, Kinaxis' on-demand service for supply chain planning, monitoring, and response (free registration required to view full article)
October 2008: Consumer Goods Technology
Cannondale's Supply Chain is Built for Speed
Cannondale turned to Kinaxis for its integrated demand-supply planning, monitoring and collaborative response capabilities. Using RapidResponse, users could do a full MRP explosion in minutes, compared to the eight hours it had taken previously.... Initially brought in as a MRP support tool, RapidResponse is now used to solve multiple problems and address a number of [supply chain management] needs.
September 2008: Manufacturing Business Technology
ERP integration: BreconRidge uses response management to meet customer demand
Says Glenda Paquin, BreconRidge VP of planning and supply management, “Supply chain management competencies comprise an integral component of BreconRidge’s value proposition. RapidResponse helped us achieve remarkable performance improvements in this area in a matter of months.
September 2008: Supply Chain Quarterly
Control is instrumental to Teradyne's success
Teradyne relies on an application from Kinaxis called RapidResponse. This software integrates data from Teradyne's and Flextronics' enterprise resource planning systems with weekly information from suppliers' information systems in order to provide a multi-enterprise view of inventory and ready access to production planning data. The software also allows Teradyne to see how an order or a change in demand will affect Flextronics as well as its suppliers. "If we change demand, we can see how that demand cascades down from the contract manufacturer to the component supplier," says Wood. "The idea is to see everything in our plants and our contract manufacturers' plants as if we were all one big connected family."
September 2008: Manufacturing.net
What To Do When You Can’t Plan Everything
The industry has changed dramatically since the concept of optimization was introduced, according to Miles. “Companies like Apple no longer make products within the four walls of their building,” he said. “If you don’t make it, what’s to optimize? It’s more about coordination than optimization and about collaboration instead of control.” According to Miles, the optimization model can only take you so far....There should be a degree of optimization in your planning stage, but you need to monitor your operations and the environment around you to track changes. Then you have to respond to any problems that arise as soon as possible to stay on track.
September 2008: 580 CFRA- News Talk Radio
Friday Market Monitor - Interview with John Sicard, EVP, Kinaxis
John Sicard provides a Kinaxis company overview (see 1 hour 45 minute mark of the Sept 19th podcast)
August 2008: Supply & Demand Chain Executive
The Growing Importance of Supply Chain Analytics
With a growing recognition of the strategic influence of the supply chain, executive teams are looking at ways to more tightly link corporate strategy to supply chain execution. This requires a clearer understanding of the cause and effect of daily operational actions in the context of meeting corporate objectives. As a result, there is increasing attention being given to establishing more robust supply chain analytics and integrated decision-making processes.
August 2008: Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies
Following Its Merger, Alcatel-Lucent Holds on to Kinaxis Software
"Around April or May of last year - about four months into the merger - we started modeling the joint company's in-house and outsourced operations. By the end of this year we will have modeled 90 percent of the Alcatel-Lucent internal and external facilities, so we can provide a capability picture for all of the company....Many people from the Alcatel side were surprised at its capabilities. They had never seen a solution like this work company-wide."
August 2008: Better Process Podcast
Industry Report: Randy Littleson, Kinaxis
What are the planning challenges MFG firms are facing today? The world has changed and the plan-execute paradigm is no longer relevant, making legacy supply chain planning and demand planning systems insufficient. What’s needed going forward?
August 2008: Manufacturing Business Technology
Unplanned events: Rolling with the punches is the vital component in S&OP
“Kinaxis, for example, offers a real-time solution used to match supply and demand,” Tohamy (Noha Tohamy, a director of supply chain for Boston-based AMR Research) continues. “The solution's strength is the responsiveness it delivers as a result of a company being able to realize—in more-or-less real time—where it is in relation to [the S&OP] plan.”
June 2008: Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies
Hidden Costs Can Sabotage Gains of Outsourcing for Manufacturers
Having the flexibility to respond quickly even in complex, outsourced supply chains —a solution area known as response management—is the basis of the Kinaxis RapidResponse product, which is used by many contract manufacturers as well as by their OEM or ODM customers.
June 2008: IndustryWeek
Response Management Drives Next Generation Sales & Operations Planning
With a Response Management capability, companies apply a structure and process to responsiveness, empowering daily decision makers with tools for risk tradeoff and response.
May 2008: National Capital SCAN
SCM: not just another techronym (download digital edition of May Issue)
Kinaxis points out that strong SCM is a system that responds to the ever-changing dynamics of the market. “Having almost endless options in price, choice, functionality, and so on, puts the consumer clearly in charge,” he asserts, noting that these factors can have a chaotic effect on SCM operations if not managed properly.
May 2008: Manufacturing Business Technology
Supply chain execution proves a rich niche for best-of-breed solutions
“We can compare our master schedule to a customer's latest forecast in minutes, and see not only that there's—say—a million dollars of purchased parts that need expediting, but the individual part numbers and purchase orders involved,” says Joyner. “It's our belief a company that can effectively manage this information, make fast and intelligent decisions, and then execute to those decisions is going to win in the marketplace.”
April 2008: Manufacturing.net
Response Management: Meeting The Challenges Of Change
When it comes to your supply chain, maybe you should focus more attention on responding than planning. Although planning is still an important part of creating and maintaining a global supply chain, companies have been falling short when it comes to responding to their customers.
April 2008: Managing Automation
Taking Off the Blindfold (free registration required to view full article)
Perhaps it's time to throw out the term, "supply chain." It contains an inherent flaw: One slipup in the sequence of events — a break in the chain — brings the whole system to a screeching halt. Manufacturers can't afford that.
April 2008: Managing Automation
Caught Between Supply and Demand (free registration required to view full article)
Most manufacturers are being forced to negotiate between globally stretched supply networks and customers that won't accept out-of-stocks or long waits for finished goods. On top of that, many manufacturers are continually increasing the number and variety of products they sell, further complicating the task of planning.
March 2008: Technology Evaluation Centers
The RapidResponse Solution Continues to Improve (part 5 of 5-part series - free registration required)
Kinaxis has been enhancing its response management software for several years now, improving its capabilities to meet the needs of global manufacturers to drive quick response throughout today’s complex global supply chains.
March 2008: Technology Evaluation Centers
A Response Management Pioneer Offers Its Solution (part 4 of 5-part series - free registration required)
Existing mainstream enterprise systems are not meeting the market need for dynamic supply network flexibility. Thus, some businesses have turned to a new software category dubbed “response management” to extend the capabilities of traditional technologies...
March 2008: IndustryWeek
Responding to Demand Volatility
Achieving excellence in responding to changing customer demands has become the number one challenge facing enterprises today and can represent the largest opportunity for companies to increase customer service, enhance margins and attain more predictable revenue across the entire value chain.
March 2008: Technology Evaluation Centers
Achieving Supply Chain Visibility: There Is More to It than Meets the Eye (free registration required)
Industry research shows that one of the most important challenges facing supply chain professionals today is supply chain visibility. As companies scramble to adopt a way to gaining better visibility into their supply chain, they quickly realize that it’s not as simple as it seems. While achieving the right type of visibility is the first step, leveraging it to take quick and effective action is the key to its success.
March 2008: Better Process Podcast
Industry Report - Randy Littleson, Kinaxis
Introducing RapidResponse for Demand Management - purpose-built for the unique challenges faced by sales, customer service and demand management departments of manufactures as they respond to daily, unexpected change while balancing customer satisfaction and operations performance objectives.
March 2008: Supply & Demand Chain Executive
Response Management for Demand Fulfillment: A customer service breakthrough
Companies are managing demand response across their fulfillment networks by brute force. Companies must look to gain fulfillment network visibility and empower their front-line staff to understand true demand and continuously align finished good supply accordingly. By being able to respond rapidly to constant change, companies can gain significant competitive advantages in customer service while driving superior operations performance at the same time.
February 2008: EDN
Collaborative decision making requires a collaboration of capabilities
True collaboration requires managing information, analysis and responsibility from the initiation of an issue right to the final decision and follow-through.… successfully balancing what can often be competing priorities of customer service and operations performance.
January 2008: IndustryWeek
Keep the Customer Satisfied
Responsiveness to demand volatility is the new basis of competition. [Customer-centric business models] rely on real-time business intelligence and human collaboration to create demand-driven supply chains that are responsive to constant change.

Recent Articles

View recent news clippings

Subscribe to updates