Demand Works Software for Forecasting, Demand Management and Supply Planning

We are pleased to announce that Exactech, Inc., Demand Works and AdapChain are the recipients of the 2009 APICS Technology Partnership Award. Each year, a committee of business leaders and APICS executives evaluate dozens of business cases and select the most exceptional among them for Corporate Awards of Excellence. APICS bestows three such awards each year at its annual conference, including one for educational excellence, one for global innovation, and one for technology partnership excellence.

Exactech, Inc. is an orthopaedic company that develops, manufactures, markets, distributes and sells orthopaedic implant devices, related surgical instrumentation and biologic services to hospitals and physicians in the United States and internationally. In 2008, Exactech established a company-wide goal to increase the accuracy of its demand planning - delivering the right mix of products, in the ideal quantities, at the right time. Exactech Vice President of Operations John Pelc said, “With our continued growth and the increased complexity of our global supply chain, we recognized the need to implement new measurable, performance-driving processes while monitoring our ongoing operations with increased accuracy. This new system allows us to forecast and plan more proactively, optimize our manufacturing schedules, balance cost with high customer service, minimize inventory investments and streamline distribution operations.”

In less than one year, Exactech achieved forecast accuracy improvements of 4-17% across five business units; safety stock inventory reductions of over $1 million; and an internally developed customer service metric was improved by 8.6%.

Demand Works integration partner, AdapChain, played a key role in enabling the business benefits, utilizing its expertise and technologies to seamlessly integrate the business forecasting, demand and supply planning software with Exactech's installed QAD ERP system.