Hewlett-Packard Emphasizes its Trust in ICON by Implementing Supply Chain Planning at PSG

Santa Clara/Karlsruhe, September 16, 2004. Continuing the long cooperation with the SCM specialist, Hewlett-Packard recently implemented ICON Supply Chain Planning (SCP) for its Commercial Personal Systems Group (PSG) to provide visibility to demand and supply across its Americas region. PSG manages the fulfillment of personal computers, servers, notebooks, monitors, and accessories for both retail and configure-to-order sales channels in U.S., Canada, and Latin America. By implementing ICON-SCP PSG is able to see regional forecasts and customer orders, along with inventories and supply plans from nearly a dozen contract manufacturers in order to better utilize their supply chain and reduce order lead times.

Prior to using ICON, HP relied on manual spreadsheet processes to integrate data from multiple systems for forecasting and order management from each contract manufacturing site. There was no way to see all demand requirements or inventory across contract manufacturers in a single system. As a result, it was virtually impossible to evaluate the impact of changes in demand or supply across the region on the ability to fill orders. What was needed was one system with multi-site visibility and a single plan. This is the solution provided by ICON.

With ICON-SCP, HP is able to consolidate all forecasts, orders, inventories, component requirements, and expected supplier receipts across all sales channels and manufacturing sites into a common system and generate a single, multi-site demand and supply plan. ICON provides the ability to view information by site and aggregate to channel and regional levels.

HP is now able to:

- Utilize sophisticated forecast netting logic at site or regional levels
- Peg component requirements to specific forecasts or customer orders
- View current and past SKU demand plans and component requirements
- Track SKU forecast vs. shipments and component planned vs. actual usage
- Monitor shortages, excess, and obsolete inventories

In addition, planners are able to pull data directly into desktop spreadsheets and pivot tables for further analysis. Planners may also simulate changes in supply or demand.

This new visibility, along with the time saved from spreadsheet maintenance, now allows planners to proactively manage their supply chain execution across the region.

Planners can now:
- Rebalance inventories across sites to resolve shortages
- Expedite shortages for real orders before forecast
- Validate the feasibility of product launch plans
- Track end-of-life excess and obsolete inventory liabilities
- Respond quickly to events that affect demand or supply
- Focus on producing results and improve efficiencies

The result is that, with using ICON to provide visibility to Americas demand and supply, HP is able to better coordinate their supply to fill orders faster, while keeping inventory liabilities down.