Wedgwood set to craft new supply chain excellence

Wedgwood IT director Stephen McAdam also expects the new system to help in reducing inventory, while boosting the productivity of its supply chain across all operations, when it goes live next March across the UK, Europe, Asia, Canada and Australasia. He says that Wedgwood’s acquisition of Royal Doulton in 2007 provided the catalyst to review its supply chain processes. The group’s existing supply chain software had become inflexible and difficult to upgrade. In contrast, Royal Doulton was seeing big improvements to its inventory and forecasting accuracy, after deployment of Infor SCM Demand Planning software. Hence the decision to adopt the same solution, which should improve visibility of Wedgwood’s global supply chain, through enhanced statistical forecasting, collaboration across all operations and tighter controls over inventory and distribution replenishment. “Our long term strategic vision is a more consistent, integrated approach to supply chain planning across all companies within the entire Wedgwood group, and we see Infor SCM Demand Planning as a core component in making this happen,” says McAdam. “Having witnessed the success in Royal Doulton, we were impressed with its depth of functionality, robustness and ability to scale to our global requirements. The solution will help us to be far more proactive in the management of our supply chain which in turn, will enable greater focus and result in boosted profitability.”