C U S TO M E R C A S E S T U DY

Key objectives
y Gain forward visibility for

How Bell Textron
soared to new heights
in supply chain planninglong-range planningy Increase granularity of billsof materials and criticalsupply constraints
y Mitigate supply chain
shortages, delays and risks
y Improve data quality

Industry:
Aerospace and Defense

Market changes required more responsive planning

Headquarters:
Fort Worth, Texas

equipment manufacturer, expanded its business into the commercial

Employees:>30K

When Bell Textron, a commercial and military rotorcraft andmarket, it noticed its operating model became less reliable in thisdynamic space. The company’s spreadsheet-centric processes could nolonger effectively and accurately model production needs as new sales
opportunities shifted demand schedules and supplier lead times grew.

Revenue:$13B+

Because of the extensive time and effort required for data collection

Challenges

and Operations Planning (SIOP) twice a year. However, within theseand analysis, Bell Textron was only conducting its Sales, Inventory,y Outdated and siloed data sources

six-month intervals, significant engineering and design changes wouldy Complex bills of materials with 8,500
unique items and up to 26 levels

alter the planning landscape. The company knew it needed to be morey Long lead times up to 36 months

simplify and expedite supply chain planning.

responsive to business changes and required a solution that could bothy Frequent engineering changesy Allocating capacity across 5,000+
work centers

A clearer picture of future production needs

Results

making across the entire supply chain. With Kinaxis’ digital twiny Shifted from bi-annual to monthly
SIOP cycle

technology, Bell Textron created and connected replicas of its factories,y Extended demand planninghorizon to 10 years

Bell Textron chose Kinaxis for its ability to enable real-time decision-

making end-to-end scenario planning swift and effective.

y Fostered real-time integration
with SAP

After a three-part implementation, Bell Textron could quickly collecty Increased capacity load accuracy
by 25%

horizon by 10 years. This forward visibility was crucial in forecastingy Optimized inventory levels

and analyze data from SAP, allowing the company to extend the planningthe facility and labor requirements for future programs. In addition, theC U S TO M E R C A S E S T U DY

company adopted a monthly SIOP cycle for reviewing demand,
inventory levels and production capacity. During the cycle, Bell
Textron uses what-if scenarios to simulate order changes andevaluate any impacts to the plan. By unlocking the power ofconcurrency, Bell Textron improved supply and demand matchingin each program, which has fostered closer collaboration acrossthe organization’s finance and operations teams and propelled thecompany towards achieving its key performance indicators (KPIs).
Simultaneously, increased granularity within Bell Textron's billof materials empowered the company to make more precise
adjustments to capacity and lead times throughout the productlifecycle, enhancing the accuracy of data crucial to the company’s
decision-making processes. Additionally, by utilizing balanced
scorecards, the company strategically optimized the timing of its
engineering changes, fostering further efficiency acrossits operations.

Our Integrated Business
Planning process would
take half a year to pull off
one cycle because of thecomplexity of all the things
that had to be orchestrated.
By the time you got
six months in, thebusiness environment
had already changed.
With Kinaxis,
we now operate ona four-week cycle.

—JAMES GRISSEL,
MANAGER OF OPERATIONALMETRICS AND ANALYTICS

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