Insights

People, Process, Technology: Three Keys to A Successful Supply Chain Improvement Project

Mark RockeyMay 26, 2023

Article

Every supply chain problem requires a unique solution: One size fits all simply isn’t a thing in this industry of countless complexities. That said, no matter the challenge, client, or prospective customer, we at Profit Point build everything we do on the same three keys to success in any supply chain improvement project: People, Process, …
Read more

Signs that Your AspenTech SCM Needs a Check Up

Jackie GraverApril 25, 2023

Article

Like the drummer on a dragon boat, scheduling sets the pace of a manufacturing operation. It helps to keep all the participants churning in sync, driving production forward and unifying everyone’s individual efforts. Paddles hit the water in unison, a couple dozen arms dig deep, and off they go. So once upon a time, you …
Read more

Demand Management in an Inflationary Environment

Deanna WenstrupFebruary 20, 2023

Article[demand planning, forecasting, Scheduling]

In 2022, the annual inflation rate for the U.S. was 6.5%: a bit lower than the previous year, but still hovering around 40-year highs. And if you’ve talked with anyone about the cost of a dozen eggs lately, it’s clear that single-digit inflation number doesn’t really reflect the higher cost of many basic commodities. Egg …
Read more

Capacity Planning Strategies: Analytics is Your Best Ally in an Unpredictable Supply Chain Environment

Aviva KosanskyDecember 12, 2022

Article[Profit Network, Strategic Planning]

  Imagining an agile supply chain can be a little like trying to picture a nimble ocean freighter: In an environment where strategies and network changes are measured in years, the idea of responding quickly and effectively to changing conditions is difficult to envision. With the right team, tools, and expertise, though, Capacity Planning strategies …
Read more

Four Keys to Increase Production Throughput by Visualizing Scheduling Constraints

Mark RockeyOctober 25, 2022

Article[Aspen Plant Scheduler, Scheduling]

Raw material shortages and chaotic supply chains can wreak havoc on manufacturing schedules and have planners scrambling for solutions. But with the right visibility into processes, schedulers can better assess how effectively production time is used, detect potential conflicts, and identify bottlenecks and constraints – and it can be a game changer. Profit Point recently …
Read more

Have Supply Chains Learned the Lessons of the Bullwhip Effect?

Karen BirdSeptember 14, 2022

Article[demand, disruption]

There’s a classic scene in “Jurassic Park” where Jeff Goldblum’s character discusses chaos theory with the paleobotanist played by Laura Dern, and he uses a quick water drop experiment to explain the consequences of unpredictability in complex systems. You’ve no doubt heard of what’s kind of the supply chain’s version of this phenomenon: “The Bullwhip …
Read more

Using Environmental Data to Design Smarter Supply Chains

Rina SchumerAugust 15, 2022

Article

Ten years ago, “What’s an environmental scientist doing in supply chain analysis?” would have been a good question. I might have even asked it myself before I took that exact step across the two industries. These days, however, news items regularly illustrate the links between climate events and supply chain disruption: From sourcing and production …
Read more

Is Your Team Equipped to Deliver True Supply Chain Transformation?

Kim PiotrowskiJune 29, 2022

Article[Global Supply Chain, Supply Chain Improvement]

It wasn’t too long ago that outside of work, many of us were met with puzzlement when we mentioned the supply chain. For better or worse, we rarely have to explain ourselves anymore: The past few challenging years have provided almost everybody with some degree of understanding of the difference that good, flexible, reactive supply …
Read more

Profit Point Celebrates Father’s Day 2022

Eric DeahlJune 16, 2022

Article

It’s Father’s Day, and we at Profit Point want to take a moment to celebrate our fathers and the impact they have had on us.  Fathers guide us by teaching us core values, and, more importantly, show us how to live by them. Although we are spread to all corners of the country, these individuals …
Read more

Challenges Facing Today’s Supply Chain Modeler

Jim Piermarini and John CutlerMay 25, 2022

Article

We’ve been at supply chain network design for a long time – 26 years – and in all that time, one thing we’ve never seen is things getting simpler for the supply chain modeler. Even as the tools have improved for taking into account production scheduling, production planning, demand planning, supply planning, distribution planning, and …
Read more

4 Thoughts on Maximizing ROI of Supply Chain Analytics

Eric DeahlMay 11, 2022

Article

What does analytics mean?  To you, that is.  According to Google Trends, the popularity of “analytics” as a topic peaked sometime between December 2011 and April 2012.   Is “analytics” just a buzzword for business reporting?  Or, perhaps, we’ve forgotten the purpose of analytics: to make informed decisions faster and more accurately. In April 2022, Profit …
Read more

Manufacturing Scheduling Software: From AspenTech MIMI to AspenTech SCM and Beyond

Deanna WenstrupApril 6, 2022

Article

Times are changing – and so are supply chains and the manufacturing scheduling software that helps keep them humming. Manufacturers, warehouses, retailers, distribution centers, and transportation providers are re-examining the way they approach business. The challenge is clear: to combat supply chain disruptions, implement new omnichannel fulfillment strategies, and help expand new markets and emerging …
Read more