Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Business Operations for Which You Can Use Strategic Planning Software


Strategic planning software helps you macro and micromanage each management aspect of your business. More than ever, businesses today are relying on planning software to improve their performance and curtail extra costs. Lean processes are being designed with the help of planning software.

1. Product mix planning

Software allows you to build an effective product mix. With the help of planning software, you can identify the best product mix and improve your standing in marketplace.

2. Supply chain strategy

Supply chain strategy is very important for timely delivery of a product to customers. In supply chain strategies, focus has shifted from a cost-based approach to a customer-centric approach to a strategic approach. Software allows you to optimize your supply chain network, rationalize capacity and allocate production materials to manufacturing plants after calculating and improve logistics performance.

3. Inventory strategy

Having sound strategies in place for inventory stock enables you to deliver products on time. Inventory stocks also impact the cost of planned safety stocks. Software will perform scenario comparisons so you can determine the optimal level of inventory to keep. This ensures that you deliver a high-level of performance while keeping your costs minimal.

4. Production planning strategy

Complex software allows automatic planning and optimization for even large manufacturing companies. This software takes various aspects into account such as demand and orders, ideal stock levels, materials planning, labor planning, machine routing and factory scheduling constraints.

A master production plan is generated with the help of several planning sheets. Any changes in demand and orders, for instance, can be accommodated by the software and an entirely new master plan is generated by the software for your easy management.

5. Lean manufacturing

Scheduling production planning software can also turn around manufacturing process in your organization. Software will take into account line scheduling, production planning, employee scheduling and will build 'what if' scenario models which let you compare different scenarios for an optimum decision.

6. Sourcing strategy

Many manufacturing companies wonder whether they will financially benefit from outsourcing certain business operations. Macro planning software helps them determine this. The software will create many 'what if' scenarios so you can compare costs and benefits.

For instance, if you are thinking of outsourcing your marketing operations to another agency, the software will calculate marginal costs and benefits as compared to doing it in-house. This detailed analysis will help you negotiate better with suppliers on price and quality.

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