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When you make and globally market over
300 brands of consumer goods with operations in over 70 countries
worldwide, efficient work processes are critical. If you want to
remain a worldwide market leader in everything from diapers and
acne products to antacids and denture creams, you cannot afford
unnecessary duplication.
Procter & Gamble knows this, and they know just the tools to use
to streamline their supply chain.
P&G underwent a massive effort to
reexamine and reengineeer their product sourcing and distribution
system in their North American operations. The undertaking
involved no less than 500 P&G employees working together over
a period of several months. The methodology developed to solve
the problem combined information technology, integer programming,
network optimization, a geographical information system, and a
copy of LINDO. The result was an overhaul of P&G's
manufacturing and distribution system that is saving well over
$250 million per year mostly from lower manufacturing expenses.
The paper, titled "Blending OR/MS,
Judgement, and GIS: Restructuring P&G's Supply
Chain" appeared in the January-February 1997 issue of INTERFACES,
and was a Franz Edelman Award Finalist. The authors were Thomas
Chorman, Franz Dill, and Glenn Wegryn of Procter & Gamble and
Jeffrey Camm, James Evans, and Dennis Sweeney of the University
of Cincinnati. |