This is the fifth of our postings coming from the Kinaxis Kinexions conference being held these next two days in Phoenix.  Previous commentaries included Dispatch One, Two, Three, and Four.

The morning of Day Two included a series of presentations representing other core industry verticals for Kinaxis, namely pharmaceutical and aerospace. I especially enjoyed a presentation delivered by Rayne Waller, Vice President, Supply Chain, and Elisabeth Kaszas, Director, Supply Chain, both of bio-pharmaceutical manufacturer Amgen.  Rayne began is presentation with an observation that I believe, that many other pharma-related supply chain teams should embrace, namely that the supply chain planning and synchronization challenges within the industry are similar to those that are being addressed in other industries such as high technology and consumer products.  There are certainly the unique challenges involved in scheduling complex biology-related batch manufacturing, shelf life and expiry date.  But the challenges for demand and supply synchronization, along with sales and operations planning alignment are similar.  Both presenters did a superb job of identifying internal and external business drivers that drive required supply chain planning capabilities within a dynamically changing business environment. They also addressed the successful adoption of an information integration strategy that allows information to flow from a backbone ERP system to and from the Kinaxis RapidResponse application.  The Amgen implementation is about to reach its first year anniversary, and the Amgen supply chain teams are benefitting from reduction in planning cycle times, increased capabilities in scenario planning, expiry and shelf life planning considerations and more efficient inventory management.

The other interesting dynamic was the interplay of the vice president, driving strategy and change management, with the director who manages day-to-day supply chain planning iterations.  We all got a first-hand, unscripted look at how that interchange occurs in terms of setting strategic expectations, setting the next milestone, and communicating supply chain’s impact to the business.  In the case of Amgen, the supply chain team is setting an impressive example on addressing and implementing pragmatic change.

To no surprise, the first question in the Q&A session of the Amgen presentation sought more details on the integration to the backbone SAP ERP system, and how the Amgen supply chain team addressed its information integration strategy. Many of the customer presentations over these past two days have provided rather positive experiences on Rapid Response’s capabilities in information integration, especially in SAP and Oracle ERP backbone environments.  In my view, this robust integration capability is a clear strength, and one that the Kinaxis teams should not be bashful in expressing to prospects.

Other morning sessions included a presentation by Kinaxis’s most widely deployed customer, Jabil, and a presentation from newest go-live customer, Raytheon Missile Systems.

This afternoon, the conference begins to wind down with a continuation of customer training workshops and a final product roadmap presentation.

Our final Supply Chain Matters dispatch will provide summary impressions from this year’s conference.

Bob Ferrari

This is the fourth of our postings coming from the Kinaxis Kinexions conference being held these next two days in Phoenix.  Previous commentaries included Dispatch One, Two, and Three.

We previously noted yesterday’s announcement that Kinaxis and E2Open have come together to jointly develop an available-to-promise order fulfillment capability that leverages both companies SaaS platforms for customers.  During the afternoon and evening, I had the opportunity to view a detailed demonstration of this functionality and speak to representatives from each company.  This functionality is rather interesting and provides existing joint customers an interesting opportunity to not only synchronize order fulfillment processes involving external trading partners, but also an alternative means to insure integration of multi-company planning and execution systems.  While this current announcement involves an initially defined scope, there are clear opportunities to add broader external supply chain process synchronization capabilities, and customers of both providers may want to take a closer look at this evolving relationship.   For high tech and consumer electronics firms, there are interesting opportunities here for more flexible deployment of technology options utilizing Cloud services vs. older ERP supported technology processes.

Last night’s evening activities provided the ultimate in entertainment options related to a supply chain management conference.  After a 45 minute bus ride to Rosa’s Ranch near Fountain Hills, conference attendees were entertained in a quaint venue on an original Indian reservation.  In addition to a delicious western style dinner, the entertainment featured The Burnt Factory Band and comedian Kevin Pollack.  For readers who may not be aware, The Burnt Factory Band was formed in San Jose, California in the summer of 2005 and features members of the Cisco Systems Global Customer Value Chain organization, including band leader Angel Mendez, who is Senior Vice President of the CVCM team.  Now that’s star power in supply chain management, and he didn’t have to deliver a keynote.

Following the band was comedian Kevin Pollack who provided lots of laughs, including many of his impressions of movie stars.  It was a great evening.

Day Two kicks off on Wednesday with a series of presentations representing other core industry verticals for Kinaxis, namely pharmaceutical and aerospace.

Bob Ferrari

This is the third of our postings coming from the Kinaxis Kinexions conference being held these next two days in Phoenix.  My previous Internet connectivity issues seem resolved now that I have had the opportunity to move away from the keynote ballroom.

As noted in Dispatch Two, this morning’s presentations focused on the common challenges that are occurring in many supply chain environments, especially the high tech industry.  One common theme that resonated from the Cisco, RIM and Qualcomm presentations was the significant shift in business models that now rely more on direct B2C consumer factors in planning and synchronizing overall supply chain activities.  Just a few years past, many of these same companies were primarily being driven from B2B fulfillment needs, and today’s models are more hybrid in nature.  The supply chain implications were consistently identified as:

• More dynamic rate of change in products and product planning cycles
• Mixed product/service fulfillment models requiring increased planning complexity
• More demanding channel partners all being influenced by the latest consumer buying patterns
• Increased part levels needing to be planned
• Increased emphasis on supply chain segmentation with an emphasis where supply chain needs to be more flexible/agile vs. more efficient.

The other common trait that I noted was a more dramatic shift toward supply chain frameworks that combine elements of push-pull for products involving customer fulfillment patterns that require quicker response beyond longer lead times.  There were other mentions of supporting combinations of configure-to-order, assemble-to-order, or other combinations of planning.

In high tech, a Kinaxis core vertical, and other industries as well, supply chain planning has become a lot more dynamic.  Speed, timely decision-making and deeper analytics are the ‘new normal’ to responsive planning processes.

Bob Ferrari

Kinexions kicked off this morning with presentations focused on the common challenges that are occurring in many supply chain environments, especially the high tech industry.  There was also a rather interesting announcement of what was described as an “pre-marital engagement” among Kinaxis and E2Open concerning the ability to perform global available-to-commit (ATP) checks utilizing a globally connected network. As with many Kinaxis related conference and customer related endeavors, it linked themes of  good-natured humor with a pride of customer accomplishments.

Doug Colbeth, President/CEO of Kinaxis kicked-off the morning with an emphasis of what Kinaxis is hearing about customer challenges.  Supply chain performance is becoming more critical to business results, volatility is increasing in both supply and demand, and S&OP is experiencing a re-birth, but in a newer context of organizational alignment.  Follow-on presentations from speakers from Altimeter Group, Cisco Systems, Research-In-Motion and Qualcomm all seemed to hit upon various aspects to these common themes.  The speed and pace of business change is extraordinary, and supply chain processes and capabilities are in the middle of such changes.

Some takeaways from my perspective was the constant reinforcement that it is the contributions of people and teams that are at the forefront of supply chain change.  The high tech industry is moving at an incredibly rapid rate of change in terms of demand and supply requirements, and many of this morning’s presenters noted how the combination of process, practices, measurements and supporting systems have all been coordinated in managing such rapid change.

This afternoon I’m hoping to have some additional discussions with some of the presenters.  I have also been experiencing some Internet connectivity issues limiting my ability to publish postings, and I’m hoping to resolve that problem as well.  Moving out of the keynote presentation ballroom will help. In any case, I’ll be posting more content when I get a more stable connection.

Bob Ferrari

It is a sincere pleasure to announce to Supply Chain Matters readers that Kinaxis will be a continuing sponsor of this blog during 2010.

Kinaxis is a rather web-savvy supply chain technology provider and was the first to sign-on as a sponsor of this site.  They recognized early on that educational and insightful blogs would play an increasing role in how supply chain professionals share thought leadership and gather insights.  Throughout 2009, our collaboration and partnership has led to innovative means to deliver these insights, including the highly successful 21^st Century Supply Chain Expert Blog Series, where I was invited to join other bloggers, industry luminaries and analysts in exchanging views on a variety of strategic supply chain topics.  Through our ongoing relationship, I have also had the opportunity to be invited to contribute to the Industry Week Monthly Manufacturing Business Challenge series, which is also sponsored by Kinaxis.

Kinaxis continues to grow its broad industry presence and customer base, including customer names such as Cannondale, Cisco, Genzyme, Honeywell, Jabil, Toshiba and others. The Kinaxis RapidResponse technology that is available today is much more than a supply chain planning system, incorporating many features for scenario-based analysis and sales and operations business process support.  The technology is available to serve both large and mid-market supply chain process needs.  Current RapidResponse implementations can accommodate users in the thousands, integrating key information from large numbers of ERP systems. 

We are also pleased to announce that in 2010, unique Supply Chain Matters commentary will also be featured in the new and improved Kinaxis Supply Chain Expert Community web site. Readers can also look forward to my attendance and live commentary from an upcoming Kinaxis sponsored customer event.

I am very pleased to have Kinaxis as an ongoing sponsor.  If your organization has needs for extended visibility and response capabilities that can be implemented in a very timely manner, I recommend you place Kinaxis on your short list.

Bob Ferrari