Industrial planning: transforming Yoplait's planning with Anaplan

Context & Challenges

Finding the right balance between industrial constraints and operational performance

Building an optimal plan through an application that promotes user experience and collaboration between teams. In the food industry, and particularly in the fresh dairy sector, industrial planning must account for numerous operational constraints. Limited product shelf life, production scheduling and the various impacts on future production capacity are all factors that need to be considered to build a consistent plan. Identifying the optimal solution requires a high level of precision and significant computing power. However, these calculations must remain compatible with operational needs. Around 20 users manage planning activities on a daily basis: every minute of calculation time directly affects their ability to make decisions. The project’s objective was therefore clear: optimize the production plan for three factories in under 30 minutes, with two calculation runs per day. This gives teams a continuously updated view to align production, distribution and operational decisions.

From demand to production

Translating orders and distribution platform forecasts into production line requirements. In a multi-platform distribution network, a sales forecast cannot be directly converted into a production plan. The first step is to translate this demand into industrial requirements. The model incorporates lead time constraints between factories and distribution platforms to provide a view that production teams can use. Each stakeholder therefore works within their own scope, demand for supply chain teams and production for factories, while maintaining overall plan consistency.

Monitoring plan performance

Key indicators to assess the proposed plan and focus decisions on critical areas. Even when optimized, a plan remains a proposal that must be analyzed and validated by planners. The application therefore highlights summary indicators to quickly assess plan quality: production line utilization rates, coverage of distribution platform requirements, compliance with shelf-life constraints and projected inventory levels. These KPIs make it possible to immediately identify areas of concern and focus analysis on the decisions that genuinely need to be made.

Deploying finished goods inventory

Distributing production volumes across platforms while taking logistics constraints into account. Once the production plan has been established, volumes must be allocated across the different logistics platforms. The model automatically calculates this distribution, taking into account local requirements, transport lead times and product shelf-life constraints. Optimization helps determine how volumes should be allocated between destinations to ensure consistent supply across the network while limiting the risks of stockouts or excess inventory.

Activating short-term levers

Adjusting the plan to protect service levels in response to operational disruptions. As the plan is based on sales forecasts, imbalances may nevertheless arise in the short term. The application provides several adjustment levers to protect service levels: inter-platform transfers, additional or cancelled production, and the use of storage when necessary. Planners can therefore simulate different scenarios and quickly measure their impact on inventory, industrial capacity and demand coverage.