Serta Simmons Bedding is digitally optimizing its manufacturing operations to build a more resilient supply chain.
The bedding retailer is using Blue Yonder’s Integrated Demand and Supply Planning software solution into its existing planning system to “improve our forecast accuracy, resulting in more accurate staffing and lower overtime costs in our plants, lower raw material Out of Stock and freight expedite costs, and lower lost sales,” the company told Supply Chain Dive.
Real-time scenario planning capabilities within the software solution, for instance, include helping the bedding company’s planners track evolving business conditions and consider the necessary network adjustments, Shri Hariharan, Blue Yonder head of manufacturing industry solutions, told Supply Chain Dive in an email.
“The IDSP solution will optimize and maximize … the full supply network capability, thereby improving manufacturing capacity utilization, minimizing changeovers, driving optimal product-mix planning and keeping factories and suppliers [productivity] aligned with demand signals,” Hariharan said.
Supply chain forecasting has gotten increasingly difficult with changing customer patterns, logistics disruptions and inflated inventory prices, Hariharan said. “If businesses get it wrong, they face the risks of bloated inventory, excess waste and reduced profitability.”
For mattress and bedding manufacturers like Serta Simmons, external factors have pivoted the way these companies manage their manufacturing and inventory processes, according to Hariharan. Not only are there a large variety of products on the market in terms of raw material usage like memory foam, the “proliferation of e-commerce and bed-in-a-box e-tailers has shaken up the industry and upended customer expectations.” In turn, the manufacturing workflows are much more complicated, he added.
“With these market driven changes, it is very important to maximize the throughput of the network, drive higher equipment utilization, plan to produce the right product-mix, in the right quantities and right time,” Hariharan said. By implementing a data-driven digital solution, Serta Simmons can make the decisions necessary to optimize fulfillment operations and balance costs, he added.
Others tapping into Blue Yonder's supply chain solutions include Uber Freight for real-time digital pricing and DHL Supply Chain for warehouse robotics management system.
