Oliver Wight’s newest customer profile details the U.S. Army’s implementation of an Integrated Business Planning program. The U.S. military demands excellence in logistics, and at the end of the supply chain are the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen whose lives depend on in-full delivery. For customers like this, failure is not an option. However, faced with significant, mandatory budget cuts and with deployment in the Middle East coming to a close, life is changing for all branches of the military, and new levels of efficiency are necessary. The U.S. Army is the first of the armed services to conduct an IBP program and, with this implementation, the Army Materiel Command (AMC) division is realizing previously unknown levels of visibility and efficiency and is set to shave billions of dollars from the Defense Department’s inventory bill. The Army opted for a full Integrated Business Planning (IBP) program. Most simply described as next-generation, or Advanced S&OP, Integrated Business Planning integrates diverse processes and plans from the individual business functions to form one holistic organizational plan. It’s a common-sense process, but one which requires time and rigor to implement. With 65,000 employees and typical military complexity, the AMC faced a daunting mission. Even using a fast-track program, design and implementation typically takes six to nine months. Astonishingly, AMC’s process was designed in just five days and fully functioning inside eight weeks.
