IBM's Dynamic Inventory Optimization Solution

I am currently watching a webinar sponsored by the Electronics Supply Chain Association (ESCA) on Dynamic Inventory Optimization from IBM. The Center for Business Optimization (CBO) group has two individuals - Terry Gleason and Michael Datovech, presenting their DIOS (which I suppose stands for Dynamic Inventory Optimization System) tool in a brief manner.
According to the service template that IBM's CBO uses for consulting with clients, they have a timeline of working through an entire engagement in a 6 week timeframe, reporting back the potential savings that could be had i.e. ROI analysis. The actual implementation of the recommendations i.e. to inteface with a SC planning tool or ERP tool takes about 12-20 weeks.
Beth Enslow of the Aberdeen Group also presented during the webinar (before I actually logged into the presentation). According to the slides that she presented:

Interest in advanced inventory optimization is especially strong in electronics and high tech, retail, consumer goods, industrial distribution, make-to-stock mfg, medical distribution, chem/pharm and aftermarket parts.

Update: Just finished the webinar. Was alright - got some more fact based market research, so to speak. The IBM tool had a degree of sophistication that will be lost on line managers who will resort to doing what they know or "tinkering" around to see what fits. Ideally, that makes for contracts for supply chain consultants who can adjust the appropriate distributions to use for modeling and the like.

Let me reiterate a commandment of successful change practice - "Thou shall not confuse those you upon whom you wish to impress change." Perhaps, it should be changed to - "Thou shall not confuse" but that is sometimes too restrictive because in confusing others, sometimes, I see very clearly what the problem is with the issue at hand- call it: a mental clarification through numerous what-ifs that lead only to error.

posted by AJ @ 2:05 PM