At the dawn of this new millennium, while competition is growing through globalisation, the objective of Nestlé has not changed since its creation: to reinforce its leading position regarding research and innovation in order to ensure its future growth. The group relies on the competence of its staff, on the strength of its trademarks and on its know-how in technology and science thanks to its fundamental research centre near Lausanne in Switzerland , and to its research and development centres established all over the world. So the group gives itself the means to meet the needs of all consumers whatever their age, the places where they are situated or their moments of consumption, and aims at satisfying their expectations in terms of pleasure, quality and security.

A collaboration lasting for over 20 years

The worldwide leader in food and beverages has equipped over 230 of its sites both in Europe and throughout the world with the SKEP® eXtended solutions from DynaSys, and DynaSys has been working with the Nestlé group for over 20 years. By using the SKEP® eXtended solutions, Nestlé is able to plan its production taking into account finite capacity calculations in terms of material resources and manpower, availability of strategic materials and significant production constraints of Nestlé's different production environments.

Worldwide planning with SKEP® eXtended Solutions

The different SKEP® eXtended Solutions have been installed in companies of all sizes within the Nestlé group, such as Nestlé France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Russia, Philippines, Pakistan, Japan, Egypt, Middle East, Ivory Coast, Ghana, South Africa and Brazil… The DynaSys solutions were first introduced back in 1984 when Adapta DLS, the forerunner tool of SKEP® eXtended Solutions, was installed by the Carnation Company in the United States , which was taken over by Nestlé. Moreover some joint ventures of Nestlé like the European sites of Cereal Partners have also chosen SKEP® eXtended Solutions.

A global vision of its Supply Chain

Nestlé’s planning specialists have developed a partnership with DynaSys to work on technological developments like the SKEP® eXtended Integration project. The database architecture of Nestlé's planning is designed to integrate a database dedicated to the Supply Chain. SKEP® eXtended Integration enables it to set up a centralised base for the Supply Chain flows. Nestlé's purpose in installing SKEP® eXtended Integration was to exchange data between the SKEP® eXtended solutions, InterMarket (a software developed internally by Nestlé) and the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems used at Nestlé. This solution enables the Swiss group to get an overview of the whole logistics chain.

‘SKEP® is a very flexible solution thanks to its large choice of parameters that allow adapting easily to the different supply chain and production environments. The modular aspect of the solution permits a quick implementation of the application, which represents a key factor within Nestlé’s extremely competitive environment. A small Nestlé and DynaSys internal team has carried out many installations over a few years.’

Thomas Morant, Nestlé’s Demand & Supply Planning/Logistics Manager

SKEP®: the solution for chilled products

DynaSys has also provided Nestlé with a solution meeting the specific needs of the chilled products market, because this solution takes into account the whole integration of the logistics chain from production up to the regional distribution centres at a daily level, while considering use-by dates, stabilisation times and quality control releases, etc.

Projet d’envergure internationale

The first installation occurred in 1995 in France when 6 distribution sites were connected to 5 plants, all that co-ordinated by the head office. The Nestlé companies situated in Belgium (with chilled dairy products), in Italy (with fresh pasta products) and in Spain (with various chilled products) have also implemented the same solution. Nestlé considers the use of the SKEP® solution as a significant step to guarantee a high customer service level as well as the freshness of its products, while reducing stocks. This solution is fully integrated within SKEP® Forecasting (sales forecasts) with the use of daily sales forecasts based on a short-term detailed sales history, that helps improving forecasts either by article, by distribution centre or by customer and by special offer.

Proven benefits

• Better visibility and transparency throughout the whole Supply Chain thanks to the solution of performance measurement.
• Improvement of the frequency of process revision.
• Better interaction and share of information between the different players.
• Synchronisation and integration of the data flows.
• Reliability of the demand management.
• Decrease of stock coverage.
• Reliability of the delivery plan.
• Improvement of the customer service level.

‘DynaSys will be playing a significant role in the development of APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) tools.’

Béda Sigrist, Nestlé’s Ass. Director at the Logistics Department in Vevey