Not surprisingly, the consumer products industry has been at the forefront of the collaborative planning movement. Clearly, improved collaboration among supply chain partners is needed to further increase efficiency and reduce inventory. Several pilot efforts have shown notable success among companies exchanging plan and forecast data. Although such pilots demonstrate the benefit of sharing plan and forecast data, how CPFR will manage the complexity, and conflicting objectives and priorities, of multiple supply partners is unclear. Collaborative planning is looking to move beyond the periodic sharing of plan and forecast data through Web-enabled visibility tools.
Early successes promise huge potential.