Background
A major consumer packaged goods manufacturer in the Netherlands with a global presence in consumer electronics and medical equipment.
Challenge
To provide the field service engineers with materials and service products in a timely and accurate fashion, as it is imperative to have accurate forecasts for materials and service products, at all times.
Solution
The client chose a hosted third-party demand management tool. This tool was integrated using SAP R/3 ALE interfacing and XML data transfer. A middleware layer was built using SQL Server that provided a platform to transform the R/3 materials, order, and purchasing data. Once transformed, the data was moved from SQL Server into the hosted demand planning tool. Once a final forecast was created, the demand forecast was moved through the SQL server middleware layer and back into SAP R/3 as ALE IDocs and posted to demand management.
Benefits
- Accurate forecasts
- A typical field service engineer now has 75% less parts and materials to carry
- He/she is 35% more effective in the field owing to availability of the right parts onsite
- Reduced the cost by 45% to support field service engineers within one year of going live
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