Teradata releases Demand Chain Management 3.2, Manufacturing Logical Data Model

DAYTON, OH Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation, has announced Teradata Demand Chain Management (DCM) Release 3.2, an analytic application that aims to help companies increase sales and decrease inventory through a forecasting and replenishment solution.

It also enables retailers and their vendors to quickly prepare for and react to changes in consumer demand, the company claims.

This release, which was co-developed with a retailer, is available immediately.

The previous release of Teradata DCM introduced time-phased replenishment. With this release, Teradata DCM 3.2 expands significantly upon the order optimization capabilities of the solution with the addition of the Load Builder and Capacity Planning modules.

Load Builder aims to optimize the space on trucks coming out of the distribution centres (DCs) and going to the stores by matching the order and delivery requirements to the actual demand, increasing the efficiency of the transportation resources while also better satisfying demand at the stores.

Capacity Planning, meanwhile, aims to review the throughput and logistical capability of the retailer’s distribution centres, identifies when available capacity is going to be exceeded by the forecasted demand and offers alternatives.

The retailer can increase throughput in the supply chain to satisfy spikes in demand or shift inventory to stay within the supply-chain constraints.

"Teradata Demand Chain Management 3.2 addresses two key challenges facing retailers and their trading partners. First, when forecasting the expected demand, retailers often don’t take into account store constraints or the capacity of the distribution centre, so the DCs will max out at peak periods. Also, typically there is no way to prioritize merchandise in transit to reduce out-of-stocks and drive the efficient use of their transportation resources," said Ed Dupee, vice president, Demand and Supply Chain Management Centre of Expertise, Teradata.

Manufacturing Logical Data Model

Teradata has also unveiled Manufacturing Logical Data Model (MLDM) 3.0 which defines how different types of data relate to each other and is a roadmap for building an enterprise data warehouse, says the company. The upgrade, announced at the Teradata Universe conference in Austria, aims to specifically addresses customer needs in a range of vertical manufacturing segments, including the automotive, consumer packaged goods, high-tech, industrial and pharmaceutical industries.

"The new Teradata MLDM 3.0 builds upon our comprehensive supply chain, customer management and financial management data-organization capability, allowing customers to support three new key areas track and trace, test measurements and logistics data from across the enterprise," said Dan Odette, vice president of Manufacturing Industry Solutions.

Serving as a pre-packaged blueprint, the Teradata MLDM provides a starting point in the process of building and implementing an enterprise data warehouse. In this upgrade, manufacturers can take uniquely identified items and track them through the whole life cycle beginning with production. Track-and-trace analysis can yield benefits around targeted product recalls, warranty expense management, shrinkage control, counterfeit-item detection and inventory optimization. Manufacturers can also track electronic product code-tagged units to better support radio frequency identification efforts, the company claims.

The second new component of the data model includes a measurement subject area, which is integral to being able to further identify unique items. Examples of measurement include any kind of quality testing done on an item or determining a supplier’s performance.

Finally, the third new feature area of the MLDM 3.0 aims to provide manufacturers with increased visibility into fleet logistics, including fleet movements and routing, freight billing and invoicing and bid tracking and scoring.