Orchestr8 has successfully completed a large supply chain management software project in Europe for British Telecom as part of the corporation’s change in strategy.
BT has now adopted a demand driven approach for everything from delivering home broadband equipment and set top boxes to parts for engineers. It wanted a company which would be able to set up the new service and achieve the main aim of driving replenishment and inventory plans from real demand – rather than concentrating on trying to forecast what may or may not be needed.
The project was run by Orchestr8 working with SmartChain International LLP, an expert in effective solutions implementation.
Brian Dooley, Senior Supply Chain Planning Manager at BT said: ‘’Recognising that in order to achieve lower inventories and improved service our biggest challenge was improving the accuracy of our demand forecast we had two choices: invest in ever more complex forecasting tools in a hope that accuracy would improve significantly or find a different way.
“For us DDMRP (Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning) was ‘the different way’ allowing us to de-risk the supply chain from forecast error and utilise real demand to drive our replenishment decisions.
“Orchestr8 and SmartChain demonstrated a deep understanding of the subject and it was clear from the very first meeting that their approach and solution was designed by supply chain people for supply chain people.
“This combined with their pragmatic and can-do attitude has made them the perfect partner to work with.’’
The project was completed in a record three months due to SmartChain’s structured implementation methodology together with Orchestr8’s deep experience in delivering demand driven planning in blue chip organizations for over 15 years using SaaS platform.