Case Studies

Forecast Accuracy Improvement Through Blue Yonder Implementation

2 minute read

The Client

Fortune 500 food manufacturing company

The Challenge

The client was transitioning from SAP APO to Blue Yonder as their new Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) tool. This switch aimed to harness Blue Yonder’s advanced statistical forecasting capabilities and phase out the need for a third-party AI provider previously required alongside SAP APO.

However, a key challenge was that the current Demand Planning team faced knowledge gaps in tuning Blue Yonder algorithms and managing reconciliation, particularly when addressing seasonal fluctuations.

The Solution

Catena Solutions designed a solution for the client which included deploying a Forecast Data Scientist to the organization.

To start, our consultant evaluated the needs of the company and the problems with the Blue Yonder implementation. They identified:

    • Gaps between the product transition histories of old SKUs and new SKUs.
    • Several issues with New Product Introduction (NPI) processes and system functionality to handle all Demand Forecasting Unit (DFU) scenarios. Specifically, there were multiple sources involved in de-commissioning old items and introducing new items, and there needed to be one true source.
    • A gap with the Blue Yonder configuration and the Demand Planners’ utilization of the tool as it related to automations.

    To remedy these issues, the consultant:

    • Evaluated the needs of the organization to align their business requirements for Blue Yonder
    • Identified the root cause of the automation issue and drove the correct configuration of batch processes and the associated missing performance metrics
    • Fine tuned the test environment for one of the client’s key categories
    • Evaluated the baseline performance of Blue Yonder verses the third-party AI provider, enabling the ability to tune all categories on baseline compared to the AI provider
    • Performed back testing to compare and evaluate forecast performance
    • Created a Python script to evaluate performance metrics of Blue Yonder forecasts and the AI provider with actual sales which was necessary due to the lack of performance-related dashboards, as the Supply side wasn’t yet live
    • Created a history cleaning training document and NPI process training and delivered training sessions to the Demand Planning team
    • Ran demand classification/auto-tune for all categories
    • Identified seasonality configuration issues and recommended a fix to enhance the statistical forecasting results
    • Identified multiple issues related to the demand workbench and made recommendations for corrections

    The consultant successfully navigated a range of unique challenges throughout the project. The first involved addressing data quality issues by identifying root causes and recommending targeted solutions. Design clarifications were also necessary due to inaccurate testing, compounded by a lack of business and functional knowledge on the client side, which the consultant addressed through corrective recommendations to Blue Yonder. Finally, they identified and resolved gaps in the reconciliation process by providing clear process clarifications.

    To achieve these outcomes, the consultant leveraged their strong Data Science background and previous experience at Blue Yonder, where they had implemented proof-of-concept Machine Learning (ML) models for demand forecasting and developed automated ML pipelines.

    The Benefit

    Benefits our work brought to the client included:

    1. An increase of 10% in total forecast accuracy through Blue Yonder after tuning in a key category
    2. A 1%-4% additional stat forecast accuracy improvement depending on category
    3. An increase in forecast accuracy over the third-party partner, with anticipated annual savings of $500k

      “It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with the Catena Solutions consultant. They are an incredibly talented individual. Thank you for bridging such a wonderful connection for our team.” -Client

      Facing any similar challenges? Contact us to discuss how Catena Solutions can help.

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