Ventana Supply Chain Models

Ventana® Supply Chain Models focus on distribution network service and costs, including the near- and long-term effects of shortages and overstock. They are used to determine optimal ordering and replenishment policy at each level, evaluate options in logistics discipline and branch procedures, and test system changes from order rules to entire network re-designs before implementation.

Examples
> Aircraft fleet sparing
> Retail grocery stocking

Aircraft fleet sparing
Ventana, working with a major defense contractor, developed a system to manage logistics for a US Air Force fleet of aircraft. The Air Force recognized that the ongoing task of finding and fixing data errors was the most challenging aspect of their logistics management activities. To meet the challenge, Ventana developed a data cleaning and logistics optimization system. The system combines a central database that facilitates changing, documenting, resolving differences and maintaining accountability for changes in the data, with a model of how parts status affects logistics system performance. By comparing model predictions to measured performance and automatically tracing the parts most responsible for the difference, the system identifies the data errors with highest impact on performance.

Evidence for the effectiveness of the system has emerged from real world tests. In a key exercise in December, 2000, twenty-five asset managers were relieved of normal duties for a week to clean the fleet data using conventional techniques. After this exercise, it took an analyst only five minutes with the Ventana system to sort through data on tens of thousands of parts and find twenty new errors, each of which was more significant to logistics performance than the errors identified conventionally. Most of the errors located the conventional way would have made little difference in calculating optimal numbers and locations of parts. On the other hand, without first correcting the twenty additional errors, any asset optimization would have been ludicrously inaccurate.

The data management and logistics system described in this example is well suited to any situation involving expensive and critical parts, especially when failure rates are low resulting in little to no historical failure data. The system includes error-resolving data management, and the optimization capabilities to determine the appropriate procurement and placement of spare parts considering both service levels and cost. Ventana can also develop custom solutions to meet a wide variety of logistics needs. Please contact Ventana for further information.