Demand and capacity management
Turbulence in the global economy, technological change, and limited availability of resources are impacting industries. Catena-X enables a secure exchange of demand and capacity data of all partners involved in the automotive network: from raw material to n-tier suppliers to car manufacturers.
Volatile value creation
Within the automotive value chain, often only direct business partners are interconnected. Who produced individual parts or later delivered the final product is not always traceable for all parties involved. This often leads to a loss of information, the occurrence of capacity bottlenecks, interrupted supply chains or even a high level of effort in rescheduling. In the worst case, it can even lead to serious disruptions or a temporary standstill in vehicle or parts production. In the end, the lack of transparency can also mean a restriction in the fulfillment of end customers' wishes. With demand and capacity management (BKM), Catena-X wants to change this in the future.
Resilient supply chains
Demand and capacity management (BKM) is based on a collaborative process. Those who are part of the Catena-X network can securely share their demand and capacity data with other collaborators: with suppliers just as much as with automotive manufacturers and recyclers.
The Catena-X ecosystem offers protected spaces with a common view of the data released. This enables the partners to react at an early stage to changes in plans and deviations and to jointly find a solution based on the situation.
Establishing a collaborative process significantly increases transparency and creates a more robust and resilient supply chain.
Advantages for everyone involved
- Improved planning reliability and accuracy,
- increased transparency about the demand and capacity situation as well as their fluctuations,
- early detection of problems and the ability to avoid capacity bottlenecks,
- less under/overproduction through better utilization,
- reduced costs by avoiding expensive re-planning and improved material procurement,
- increased delivery reliability and customer satisfaction.
Useful for SMEs, too
First, the focus is on enabling small and medium-sized enterprises with a lower degree of digitization to access the process of demand and capacity management and the associated benefits. Not all companies already have the infrastructure to detect bottlenecks or imminent overproduction at an early stage.
Technical features
The basis for the successful cross-company process is a uniform and standardized format as well as agreed quality criteria for the exchange of demand and capacity data. This was defined by partners involved in the entire value chain within the Catena-X consortium.
The application provides business partners with a single point of truth on the data they share. As a result, both partners always have the same level of data to assess the situation while ensuring data sovereignty in accordance with European security directives.
By proactively informing the system, bottlenecks can be detected, resolved and avoided at an early stage. In addition, in the future, companies at lower levels of the supply chain will have the opportunity to actively pass on information about problems to the top of the network in order to find a timely solution together if necessary.
The application offers opportunities to collaborate directly in the tool across company boundaries and to work out solutions to problems based on shared data. The networking and compatible architecture of the application enables users to contact all business partners at the same time, regardless of whether they are suppliers or customers. This avoids cumbersome and time-consuming multiple registration in different island solutions.
Current state of development
A first application for the Catena-X App Store is currently being developed, which initially pursues the following objectives:
- Implementation of a coordinated standard for high-quality demand & capacity data
- Creating a common vision at the “Single Point of Truth” while respecting data sovereignty
- Early warning of bottlenecks and problems
- Digital collaboration and joint solution finding within an application
Due to the networking, the application offers:
- a high level of user-friendliness,
- low maintenance,
- ensuring data sovereignty.
As part of an agile software development, the application is continuously further developed and improved. For this purpose, functionalities such as advanced trend analyses, network notifications and simulation functionalities across several stages of the supply chain are already being discussed.
Jürgen Schuberthan
Business Owner
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