Supplier relationship management (SRM)
Schneider Electric, the world's largest manufacturer of electrical distribution systems and components, invested in SAS' SRM solution to secure the best match between Schneider's needs and the suppliers' offers. Schneider Electric has three or four big manufacturers internationally, and if each manufacturer buys the same component from suppliers in its respective country, there are three or four different prices. Clearly, if Schneider can negotiate one contract for the component for all its subsidiaries, the company can get a much better deal.

Schneider's purchasing organization has four leading markets, each worth $1 billion: raw materials and means of production, fabricated metallic and plastic components, electronic and electrical, and non-production. The global purchasing operation works with these four markets and a total of 33 commodity groups. The local purchasing countries have their own headquarters in Europe, North America and other international locations, and handle 29 local commodity groups. The new SRM system combines data from SAS and D&B to uncover affiliations between companies with different names. Buyers might not know about these links unless they looked in detail at these companies' financial reports. With SRM spend analysis, whenever more than 50 percent of a company is owned by a parent organization, Schneider buyers are notified so they can take action.

All purchasing information from the various Schneider subsidiaries is extracted on a monthly basis, codified according to the application from SAS and D&B, put through the validation and control engine, and consolidated. After the information is sorted by commodity, it is then fed back to the subsidiaries so that they may track and compare their progress with the various suppliers. The system is available to more than 900 Schneider procurement and sourcing professionals worldwide.

Forecasting and inventory management
Europay Austria, the electronic payments organization set up in 1993 and owned by Austria's financial services institutions, saves 58.5 million (US$9.2 million) each year with a SAS forecasting solution for cash machine management. Accurately stocking ATMs with cash has improved customer satisfaction and reduced the capital tied up in the cash machines that the banks previously could not use to earn money. On the basis of the filling costs, potential interest that could be earned and the frequency and duration of empty ATMs, an optimized filling model was worked out using SAS. Using historical data from one Austrian bank, a target stock level for 1999 was simulated. Predicted need was compared with the actual need. By comparing the filling costs that had actually arisen with the simulated values, the savings potential was estimated. It was shown that every cash machine offered a potential savings of around 53,000, which, with 2,750 cash machines throughout Austria, translates to an annual total of at least 58.5 million (see related story).

Supply-chain optimization in retail
Kimberly-Clark, the global consumer products manufacturer, selected Oros Value Chain Analyzer software from SAS to provide more transparent cost analysis for each of Kimberly-Clark's 400 consumer brands, from Huggies to Kleenex. Kimberly-Clark also uses Oros Activity-Based Management to accurately calculate the profitability of its 18,000 customers across 16 countries in Europe. Kimberly-Clark wanted a solution that would identify and provide full analysis of the costs associated with each product at each point along the supply chain, be it the cost of transport, labor or property rental. By doing so, the company could identify whether a product is truly cost-efficient and build more flexibility into its routes to market. For example, Kimberly-Clark can see what impact altering the distribution of a product or serving a customer from a different warehouse will have on profit margins .

Coca-Cola Enterprises GB recently licensed Oros Value Chain Analyzer software to establish the true "cost to serve" for each of its products. Oros Value Chain Analyzer allows Coca-Cola Enterprises to generate a series of "what- if" scenarios to look at the costs associated with alternative methods of packaging and supply, such as merchandisable units. This makes it clear where cost savings can be achieved across the entire supply chain and, in conjunction with its trading customers, Coca-Cola Enterprises can revise its distribution strategy accordingly, thus benefiting all concerned.

The number of products within the soft drinks category has increased by 12 percent* in the last two years, while category space has only increased by 7 percent.** (Sources: *ACNielsen / **Verdict) As a result, there is increased pressure on product availability for both suppliers and retailers. Oros Value Chain Analyzer is a fundamental part of Coca-Cola Enterprises' strategy to address this, providing the commercial intelligence behind the company's supply chain, ranging and availability programs. Coca-Cola Enterprises sees Oros Value Chain Analyzer as an indispensable tool that will enable the company to link supply and demand strategies together (see press release).

Quality improvement through process intelligence
Altis is one of the most important high-tech companies in the world. It controls all of the building blocks required for developing S.O.C. (the single-chip or "System on a Chip" concept). These components include analog and digital transistors, dense SRAM (standard random access memory), on-board DRAM (dynamic random access memory), and flash memories. Altis used SAS software to develop a platform that enabled the company to improve performance by 1.7 percent, which represents considerable savings on high volumes. The SAS application provides access to an automatic and interactive reporting system for quality control staff and Altis managers. SAS data mining software is used to investigate faults associated with lowered performance (see related story).

Scheduling optimization
Meyer Shipyard, builder of specialist ships and cruise liners, recently licensed SAS software to develop an application that will enable its ship-building projects to be planned and controlled more efficiently. Shipyard executives expect that the new application will optimize project running times, reducing costs considerably. The new solution will be used by all staff members involved in project management – from developers through planners and supervisors to managers. Multi-dimensional (OLAP) reporting tools will allow staff to follow the status of a project at any given time and provide a sound basis for operative and strategic decisions (see related story).