Enterprise Asset Management
After-sales service is now being recognized as a high-profit business area for manufacturing companies as revenues gained from it gather momentum. However...
, this transformation brings with it a new set of challenges. Organizations must be proactive in gauging customer expectations, understanding product performances and adapting to a next -generation business model. This paper explains how these challenges can be converted into opportunities that push growth and create differentiation by focusing on four key areas - asset visibility, IT-enabled knowledge management, technology enablement of field services, and re-engineering the IT landscape.
Asset-intensive organizations such as those in power, utilities and the oil and gas sectors are looking to modernize and consolidate their Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solutions. Successful prediction...
of asset performance and utilization drives efficiency through improved supply chain and customer management processes and enhances user experience. However, enterprises should consider several factors to ensure a successful consolidation and modernization exercise. Infosys experts explain what it takes for organizations to attain high standards of asset utilization.
Asset-centric industries such as manufacturing, energy, utilities, automobile and transportation leverage asset management solutions to manage critical assets. However, these solutions are mostly transaction-based, with benefits limited to the needs...
of local users. As companies go global, they need a global view of their enterprise assets. Infosys Enterprise Asset Management Maturity model enables companies to maximize value through an integrated enterprise-wide view of assets. Our model helps companies enhance operational efficiency through better maintenance schedules, efficient spare parts planning and optimal resource allocation.
Sourcing & Procurement
Organizations face challenges in contract management, resulting in lost savings. Contract management, an integral part of Spend Management, links strategy with execution. Infosys' experts...
share their perspectives on the benefits and implementation of the 'right' strategy to help you address issues while leveraging contracts across the enterprise.
The Chief Procurement Officer's (CPO) primary responsibility today is to create cost-saving strategies. Limited visibility into an organization's spending in diverse buying categories, however, makes the job challenging. According...
to an AMR Research report, only 42% of large firms surveyed have visibility into details of their spending that can drive informed decisions. In this white paper, Infosys' expert recommends a 360-degree approach to enterprise cost management. This white paper elaborates upon augmenting your enterprise's spend visibility and redefining your procurement strategies. It also explains the Inside-Out and the Outside-In views of procurement that give a complete understanding of your cost management landscape.
Unleashing the potential of SRM and CRM
A typical IT environment in the manufacturing industry lacks visibility on the customer and supplier...
fronts of the supply chain, which holds the key to strategic planning and execution. CRM and SRM investments contribute to increased productivity and improved profitability only through efficient order management processes. Taking an enterprise view of CRM and SRM systems, companies must integrate them to capitalize on opportunities from demand and supply perspectives to increase profits and ROI.
This paper attempts to analyze the buyers' supply chain for the hotel industry. The analysis identifies potential areas from where benefits may arise, the challenges to achieve them, and the approach to overcome these problems.
Supply Chain Analytics
Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies can maximize the effectiveness of Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM) by adopting a metrics framework-based approach. Our experts present a metrics framework...
to monetize investments in business intelligence and analytics.
Supply chain analytics solution can help managers across the enterprise analyze barriers to market entry, respond to competition within well-defined supply tier structures, deal with the threat of product substitutes, continually...
drive product innovation, and manage product lifecycles to maximize returns.
Supply Chain Execution
The retail industry has witnessed a proliferation of options for their Supply Chains via multiple ordering channels and diverse fulfillment channels. Owing to widely differing perceptions in...
the Multi-channel Commerce (MCC) marketplace, a structured, all-encompassing multi-channel strategy is the next logical step. This paper outlines the natural progression of Multi-channel Operations (MCO) to Multi-channel Integration (MCI) as a foundation. Our experts explore how organizations with multiple ordering and fulfillment channels can benefit from the MCI strategy.
Up until now, retailers have relied on their store network as the primary sales channel – a model that worked well in the past but proves inefficient in an era where customer expectations have soared. Recent times have seen retailers adopting the ambitious multi-channel route to...
enhance customer interactions and transactions though various channels such as websites, contact centers, store kiosks, and mobile devices. This paper discusses the key points of a dedicated Oder Management System (OMS) that plays a critical path in a multi-channel environment. Our experts believe that retailers with a well-mapped implementation strategy investing in best-of-breed OMS packages will enjoy immediate and long term business benefits.
Infosys’ expert provides a process view of a ‘Click & Collect’ solution and its implications on inventory management and order fulfillment processes. The solution combines the capabilities of direct home delivery with store...
collect to enhance the multi-channel experience of customers.
In an increasingly competitive and global marketplace, retailers are challenged to increase sales through assured product availability, improve forecasting accuracy and decrease inventory costs. Infosys’ expert advocates the...
‘flow through distribution’ model to transform retailers into demand-driven supply chain organizations. Flow through distribution increases order availability on retailers’ shelves, reduces the order fulfillment cycle, integrates supply chain planning and execution processes, and reduces labor costs in warehousing.
In most industries, the key to cutting costs lies in successfully managing returns. Cutting reverse logistics costs by refurbishing and reselling returned goods can positively impact an organization's profitability. Reverse logistics can, in fact, be...
transformed into a strategic differentiator for companies in the hi-tech industry. In this paper, Infosys' experts discuss this challenge and how an integrated solution approach promises high optimization, track and trace reconciliation and decision support to reverse logistics processes.
Customer retention, the lack of seamless collaboration, unreliable performance and service measurement and inaccurate forecasting are only some challenges that plague service practitioners in the manufacturing industry. In the face...
of increasing business complexities, service functions need to be transformed to improve customer satisfaction, enhance profitability, create a responsive service supply chain and optimize field service operations. Infosys' experts examine how the Service Performance Workbench (SPW) helps address these challenges by providing visibility and offering performance metrics for the after-sales service supply chain.
E-commerce traffic continues to rise exponentially in the retail industry. This growth, however, is hindered by slow e-commerce websites. Retailers need to rethink their inventory availability strategies...
to achieve faster browsing without compromising on on-time deliveries. Our white paper addresses the challenge of scalability by using a differentiated inventory visibility strategy. It avoids maintaining inventory positions for sold items leading to an improved website shopping experience.
Warehouse Management System (WMS) consolidation streamlines processes by extending best practices to all the storage locations of an organization. Our white paper elaborates on the right instance strategy for WMS consolidation. It improves returns...
from WMS implementations and helps optimize hardware investments and operational maturity.
Almost 28% of all online retailer orders are affected by fraud. The efficiency of fraud management process directly impacts e-commerce profitability, operating efficiency and scalability. Enterprises need to adopt a toolkit-based approach...
that combines a series of fraud prevention tools and techniques to maximize operational efficiency and sales conversion while minimizing fraud risk. Our white paper describes the tools, processes and systems for online fraud detection, prevention and management.
This white paper provides insights into multi-channel retailing based on client experiences and provides recommendations to build a customer-centric retail enterprise.
As customers and business partners get more demanding, manufacturers are under pressure to get their orders right when it comes to delivery. Customers want the 'perfect order' - the correct product sent and delivered on time in perfect...
condition. A company's ability to forecast demand can help in such a scenario as it will be able to stock products based on demand-driven customer requirements. However, in today's multi-channel commerce (MCC) environment, forecasting demand has become a complex process. This white paper examines the measures that can be implemented by an organization to manage demand more effectively.
How can retailers position themselves to deliver a seamless customer shopping experience across channels? How can retailers effectively navigate multi-channel integration challenges and build operational synergies through a single view of inventory and customer?
Supply Chain Management
Package-Agile comes as an alternative to Enterprise Package Application Software (PAS) products, as it delivers consistent value for enterprise critical business functions like ERP...
, SCM and CRM. Infosys experts explain how package-agile differs from conventional implementation approaches of PAS products as it combines speed and efficiency of the agile paradigm with the pre-configured nature of PAS products. It provides flexibility and agility to change direction based on new market realities.
Several production scheduling optimizers use Genetic Algorithms (GA) for their ability to manage complexity during scheduling of shop floor production. Our expert analyzes Genetic Algorithms, discusses the implementation challenges...
and provides an approach to implement GA-based solutions.
Unlike most other business, Transmission & Distribution (Network Operation) companies do not have the flexibility to modulate their prices independently based on demand-supply dynamics. Given the practice of 'performance-based rate making'...
by regulators in place, these companies have to constantly strive to reduce cost through various means to ensure their margins. Having explored various possibilities in their operations, these companies have realized the need to revisit their supply chain practices to identify further opportunities to reduce cost.
Supplier risk management has become a focus area in the wake of low-cost country outsourcing, geo-political instability and recurrent natural disasters. Infosys proposes a Supplier Risk Management (SRM) framework to mitigate risks.
Financial supply chains are full of untapped savings opportunities. Infosys believes that in an increasingly networked environment, systematic and proven techniques can help realize such opportunities.
The ever-flattening world presents supply chain risks. Are companies building flexibility to manage such risks? Our experts probe supply chain trends.
The Flat World provides opportunities as well as challenges. Networked operations place huge demands on businesses due to the emergence of new markets. Consequently, efficient planning, implementation and control...
of supply chain operations are critical success factors. Organizations need to achieve supply chain visibility, secure demand-supply synchronization and reduce landed costs. This white paper examines how Infosys' Supply Chain Transformation solutions help businesses achieve their business objectives.
This paper discusses best practices observed from the most successful Inbound Logistics Programs of manufacturing organizations in the automotive industry and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturer. It also discusses...
the role of a 3PL services provider (focusing on transportation and warehousing services) in this equation.
The oil downstream distribution segment is increasingly adopting a variety of supply chain solutions. However, the unpredictability of prices, margins and long lead-times make the process extremely challenging. This paper describes the complexities in applying these solutions.
Supply Chain Planning
An efficient Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) Demand Planning design ensures long-term sustainability of a solution. A robust APO Demand Planning design should have...
- Scale and scope management of solution among Demand Planning planners
- Statistical forecast intervention and management through Demand Planning functionalities
- Efficient Product Lifecycle Management in APO Demand Planning
Our white paper provides an effective approach to design and implement an APO Demand Planning package.
Demand forecast is a key input for Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturers. Higher quality forecasts results in higher customer service levels, within planned costs. The two primary factors that influence the quality of the forecast are demand uncertainty...
and demand variability. While demand uncertainty is dealt with, there is an urgent need in the industry to tackle the issue of demand variability.
Our expert focuses on how CPG manufacturers can manage demand variability in this white paper. He discusses how, by incorporating the voices of the customer, consumer, reason and caution into the demand planning process, companies can achieve reduction in artificially induced demand variability, ability to sense known demand variability and receive systematic protection from the negative effects of any unknown variability.
Infosys' expert discusses the concurrent system for separating planning systems pre-divesture, its impact on various facets of planning systems, synchronization issues and critical success factors...
for the execution of a system separation initiative. He focuses on the key differences in system separation for transaction systems and planning systems.
Solvers in Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) Supply Network Planning (SNP) are important tools to undertake requirement planning for a network based on a demand plan. Selecting a solver for an SNP project...
is crucial as it determines the SNP design. SNP offers three solvers in APO - Heuristics, Capable-to-Match (CTM) and Optimizer. Our white paper provides practical insights into issues that need to be considered while deciding on the solver. It also explores the possibilities and limitations of frequently used solvers.
Greater variability and uncertainty across global supply chains have increased the complexity of manufacturing and distribution. Infosys experts believe that inventory optimization, backed by advanced technology, is the only way out.
Semiconductor industry is characterized by extensive networks of supply chains with both inbound and outbound partners. Generic supply chain software does not meet the demands of a complex network of multiple partners and...
raises reliability issues. This white paper tracks the supply chain ecosystem in the semiconductor industry and evaluates supply chain planning scenarios in both collaborative and non-collaborative systems.
Stockouts are a manifestation of the demand invisibility problems faced by retail and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies. Demand-Driven Supply Network (DDSN) addresses this business issue. However, to effectively...
implement DDSN, CPG companies must address the demands of their retail partners regarding collaboration and IT synchronization. How can CPG companies meet DDSN-related retailer expectations effectively?
The motion picture industry today is facing a challenge that is traditionally associated with the consumer goods sector - management of its finished products supply chain. It may be just the right time for media companies to tighten their...
supply chain technology and processes to successfully manage this emerging medium.
Advanced refinery planning requires the ability to respond rapidly to changes in the market or refinery capacity. Traditional methods for running the linear planning tools rely on time-consuming processes for data collection, verification and scenario...
analysis, resulting in delayed decisions. Rapid and informed decision making requires integrating plant, trading and marketing data. Infosys proposes refinery planning data integration by utilizing an enterprise portal approach. Portals can serve as a point of integration for data collection from both internal sources and external partners, perform analytics, and generate proactive alerts and reports on demand to a wide variety of user types, in a secure manner.