This solution combines weekly inventory data from a pharmaceutical company’s distribution centers with demand forecast data to provide a view on the relationships between supplier and distributor as well as identify weak links in the supply chain. Two main goals were identified for this application. One goal is to recognize what products are under stocked or out of stock. The second goal is to identify where these products fall in the supply chain to identify distributors or suppliers that are at risk for not having the necessary inventory to meet the forecasted demand. The ability to analyze this information, across several different levels of detail, such as a product hierarchy, supplier location, and distributor location delivers powerful insights to users across all levels of the organization. These insights empower the supply chain managers to make more informed decisions and assessments of their supply chain. Managers are able to identify a specific product that is continually below adequate stock levels by utilizing historical data and trace the performance back to a distributor or supplier where more holistic trends can be found. 

An accurate understanding of the supply chain is a necessity for all members in the network so potential risk areas can quickly be identified. The robust interactivity and self-service capability of the application enable users to focus on their geographic position or product hierarchy to enable efficient data-driven decisions.

An application like this provides benefit to a range of business users at every level of the company from executives to supply chain analysts. Understanding the synergies in the supply chain promotes strong awareness of suppliers and distributors.  The application walk-through illustrates strong use-cases for the application which show how users can get powerful insights that can change the way their organization makes decisions.