SDCExec.com |

Exton, PA — August 19, 2008 — Ticona, a division of Celanese and a major engineered polymers corporation, said this week it has implemented Elemica Inc.'s Demand Schedule Replenishment (DSR) solution to automate the replenishment process for its customers.

According to Elemica, DSR is designed to improve visibility into the supply chain, giving a view of inventory at every level, and incorporates sales forecasts for a picture of actual inventory and demand.

"With Elemica's DSR solution as the backbone of a disciplined planning process, Ticona can quickly bring its inventory in balance to help meet the needs of even their most demanding customers," said Mike McGuigan, CEO, Elemica. "They can respond to changing customer demand patterns and reduce or eliminate missed deliveries and over-shipments."

Adam Herman, SAP Leader/Americas at Ticona, commented: "Ticona explored other solutions, but we decided Elemica was the best option. Point-to-point via [electronic data interchange (EDI)] for all customers was just too expensive a proposition. Elemica was the best value and has saved us time and money. Each subsequent implementation goes smoother and smoother, so we are looking at other Elemica offerings for further cost improvements."

Previous to the implementation of Elemica's DSR solution, Ticona said it was experiencing problematic duplicate shipment issues with an EDI point-to-point connection, and before Ticona could determine the cause of the problem the company had to pay for return shipments and "eat" restocking fees. Ticona manually collected Excel spreadsheets of customer sales forecasts and then interpreted them into orders. Elemica said it now automates this process, improving efficiencies. Ticona can now standardize the company's work processes, whether the customer is sending discreet purchase orders (POs) or delivery schedules.

"When we deployed Elemica's Demand Schedule Replenishment with one initial customer, we saw a dramatic drop in duplicate shipments," added Adam Herman. "And if they do occur now, Ticona is able to get to the root of the problem quickly. We have been able to get the customer to review their own processes to improve what they are sending, thus boosting productivity."

Elemica's DSR solution simplifies the replenishment process by integrating demand signals and inventory levels into the planning application, generating time-phased proposed deliveries or standardized replenishment schedules.