Highspring helps snack manufacturer dynamically improve forecasting 

The Challenge

One of the world’s largest snack food manufacturers, with annual revenues surpassing $1 billion and serving over 12,000 customer locations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, needed to improve its planning and forecasting capabilities. The snack manufacturer operates 11 plants across the U.S. and Canada to meet its customer demand, and nine of these plants were acquired over the last decade.  

After successfully upgrading to the newest Blue Yonder software version, it was determined that the client’s demand forecasting, sales and operations planning, and fulfillment planning would benefit from an enhanced upper-level planning solution. As a result, the client sought an extension to the Blue Yonder solution to facilitate easier usability and data management. 

The Solution

Highspring recommended the use of its proprietary CORE solution. Highspring’s CORE is the newest release of Highspring’s Toolkit™ and delivers reduced time to value and quicker implementations.  

The solution was implemented to dynamically add two higher levels to the demand forecasting hierarchy. The automatic build of all the required master data dramatically reduced the time and effort normally required. Using only three main attributes, Highspring’s CORE created two higher levels in the planning structure. As new products are added to the client’s source system, Highspring’s CORE alerts planners of a new product and automatically creates all data needed to plan the new product.

Our Impact

As a result of the partnership, our client significantly reduced the time and expense normally required to modify the planning hierarchy. This entire effort was implemented remotely via online tools with team members in several different locations around the U.S. When combining the cost savings of automated data creation with no travel expenses, the client saved thousands of dollars and reduced interruption to its planners.  

The ability for the client’s planners to attend the design, testing, and rollout of the new solution online from their homes, where they were working due to COVID, proved to be incredibly effective. Key results from the engagement include: 

• Reduced cost of implementation and ongoing solution maintenance due to CORE’s automated data creation and fully remote delivery. 

• Delivered the project under budget. 

• Implemented on an accelerated timeline, fully remotely. 
• The client now has a tool, Highspring’s CORE, that it can use to dynamically change how it plans by simply adding or changing a few attributes.