Inventory optimization at Procter & Gamble: Achieving real benefits through user adoption of inventory tools

摘要

Procter & Gamble has, during the last decade, rendered its cross-functional organizational structure with operations research to control using first the spreadsheet-based inventory models for local optimization and then using its complex supply chains that implemented multi-layer inventory optimization software to minimize inventory costs across the board, leading to a saving of $1.5 billion in cash. The success is attributed to the design of the planning process facilitating inventory management and the decision tree, relating a business to the optimal inventory tool. More than 90 percent of its business units, corresponding to about $70 billion in revenues, use these tools and the firm plans to apply multi-echelon tools to coordinate 65 percent of its supply chains in the next three years. (8 refs.)