Tuesday, April 8 – Wednesday, April 9, 2008
SAS World Headquarters | Cary, NC

Panel discussions

The two interactive panel discussions will offer an opportunity to hear multiple perspectives from manufacturing executives, technology experts and industry thought leaders. Take the opportunity to learn about trends in demand planning and service excellence, while also delving into these topics on a practical, real-world level.

1. Demand Forecasting and Planning: Seeing the Unseen to Consistently Hit the Mark
   
   Featured panelists:
   • Keith Henry
     Vice President for Manufacturing Global Industry Solutions
     Teradata Corporation
   • Kenneth B. Kahn, PhD
     Professor of Industrial Technology and Avrum and Joyce Gray Director
     Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship
     Purdue University
   • Bob Wojewodka
     Technology Manager
     Lubrizol Corporation
   • Wayne Obetz, PhD
     Senior Manager, Quantitative Commercial Insight
     Center of Excellence for Process Management
     AstraZeneca
   • Charles Chase
     Business Enablement Manager
     SAS

   This panel discussion will explore the differences between demand forecasting and demand planning as well as best practices for improving both functions. Learn why accurate and timely forecasts are critical for success and how they affect the entire enterprise. Panel members will explore a number of related issues, including:

   • How forecasting plays a critical and holistic role in the long-term health and viability of the business.
   • Why focusing on data and analytics versus processes and judgments is a critical distinction that all organizations must address.
   • Why it is important to not address only symptoms, and how to get to the root of the problem.
   • What consensus forecasting is and how companies can work to achieve it.
   • Why new product forecasting is becoming more important to the future growth of companies.
   The panel will also discuss the hard truth that, although companies recognize the competitive advantage they can gain by creating accurate demand forecasts and selecting optimal scenarios, these objectives are more easily discussed than accomplished. In fact, most companies find creating accurate plans and forecasts and monitoring key metrics in real or near-real time to be quite challenging.

   Hear the panelists share their experiences and insights about how to address some of the contributors to this challenge, such as episodic demand patterns, rapidly changing market dynamics, far-flung operations and supply chains.

2. Service excellence panel: Making the Loyalty-Revenue-Cost Connection
   
   Featured panelists:
   • Olli Patrikainen
     Senior Manager
     Accenture Consumer and Industrial Products Practice
   • Eric Arnum
     Editor
     Warranty Week
   • Josh Becker
     Manager of Reliability
     Sub-Zero Freezer Company
   • Michael Kozlowski
     Director of Sourcing and Engineering
     Sears Home Services
   • David Froning
     Product Manager for Warranty Solutions
     SAS

   This panel will delve into a real-world discussion about a concept that leading organizations are quickly grasping and using for a key competitive advantage: Better service center performance can quickly reap major rewards such as highly satisfied and loyal customers, reduced warranty and service costs and revenue increases. Panelists will share firsthand insights and examples about how manufacturing-based organizations can optimize service parts and field service operations, including call centers, to positively affect the bottom line in ways that have long remained untapped in the aftermarket environment. Among the perspectives they will consider:

   • Spare parts – Learn best practices for accurately forecasting demand and supply of short-term, new-part and lifecycle parts, determining optimal inventory levels and replenishment policies, gaining visibility across the service network, and creating more integrated, consistent information.
   • Service operations – Find out the latest strategies in balancing labor staffing for call and field service centers and using call pattern, resolution and financial analyses to improve call agent performance and set profitable contract terms.
   • Warranty – Hear how the most proactive organizations have moved from looking historically to taking a predictive view of warranty operations through the analysis and integration of warranty data with customer, product, manufacturing and geographic information. You will hear firsthand insights on how organizations detect and correct issues earlier while reducing warranty costs.