A continent begins to open for SCM suppliers as Kenya grapples with improving medical supply distribution networks.

Kenya gave itself a big job to pull off when it mandated its Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA) to become the leading supplier of quality, affordable and readily available medical supplies all over Kenya. That's a country about the size of France with the 37th largest population in the world with a single port (Mombasa), only 5,000 miles of paved road, and with fewer than 1,700 miles of rail lines, but a whopping 231 airports (19 of which have paved runways). Supply chain management software had its work cut out for it with the Kenya project, reported the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Supply Chain Management Newsletter, putting together that special combination of art and science that goes into improving the way Kenya finds the raw components it needs to make medical products or source supplies and then to deliver them to its myriad clinics and health care facilities.

Although still at step one of implementing their project, Kenya has mapped out the entire 5-step SCM objective of plan, source, make, deliver, and return." By looking at the entire supply chain as a single system," observes USAID, "we can see what kind of service the network is “designed” to deliver and what the highest priority leverage points are in the supply chain." Success with the Kenya SCM model opens up supply chain management to an almost unlimited set of opportunities on the huge continent.

Best-in-Class Full-suite Supply Chain Management Software:

• Offers a comprehensive suite of tightly integrated modules and applications.
• Provides functionality to fully automate and support all end-to-end SCM processes
• Robust order management productivity for entire order-to-delivery cycle.
• Top Considerations before Buying Full-suite Supply Chain Management

Software:

With a full software suite of SCM modules, a business achieves mastery over previously disjointed manual processes. Ensure that the SCM selection provides complete 360-degree visibility across the entire supply chain network: activity status, suppliers, production plants, storage facilities, and distribution centers, which enable more effective tracking and management of all related processes.

Key Providers:

1. Epicor Software Corporation provides major enterprise software solutions for supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and professional services automation software. The company's software also includes collaborative applications that link employees, distributors, and suppliers, encompassing operations such as supply chain management, sourcing, and procurement. Epicor claims offerings help its customers to realize improved performance, better efficiency, and a competitive edge over its peers. The company also integrates Web services technologies and service-oriented architectures in providing custom solutions for a wide variety of business sectors, including hospitality, retail, manufacturing, distribution, and services sectors, coupled with related vertical markets. The company claims to serve over 20,000 customers. Epicor was founded in 1984 as Platinum Software Corporation. In the late 1990’s, the company, through strategic acquisitions, evolved from a provider of financial accounting systems to a provider of end-to-end enterprise solutions. In 1999, Platinum Software changed its name to Epicor Software Corporation.

2. Logility's principal activity is to develop, market and support an integrated suite of business-to-business collaborative commerce software products to small, medium, large and Fortune 1000 companies. The software is designed to manage the flow of information and products along the entire value chain of an enterprise. Logility’s Voyager Solutions is a full supply chain management solution that features performance monitoring capabilities in a single Internet-based framework and provides supply chain visibility, demand, inventory and replenishment planning, sales and operations planning, supply and inventory optimization, manufacturing planning and scheduling, transportation planning and management; and warehouse management. Forecasting, as well as demand planning, point-of-sale analysis, distribution and retail operations are provided by the company's Demand Solutions product. The company makes sales directly and through parent company American Software.  Reuter's reports that Logility’s customer base is approximately 1,250 companies located in more than 70 countries.

3. Aspen Technology, Inc. is engaged in providing integrated software applications and related services that cater the needs of customers in a variety of industries such as oil and gas, petroleum, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other industries which manufacture and produce through chemical processes.  Aspen’s customer base includes major global companies such as BP, Exxon Mobil, Bayer, The Dow Chemical Company and BASF. Together with its subsidiaries, the company,  utilizing proprietary empirical models of chemical manufacturing processes to enhance plant and process design, economic evaluation, production, production planning and scheduling, supply chain optimization, and operational performance, develops and supplies integrated software and services that enable the process industries to design, operate, manage, and optimize their business processes.  The company’s aspenONE product provides engineering, plant operations, and supply chain management software applications.

4. Adexa Inc., founded in 1994 by Dr. Cyrus Hadavi, provides enterprise business planning and performance management solutions.  These solutions include an enterprise global planning system, sales and operations planning, demand planning, collaborative operations planning, supply chain planning, factory planning and scheduling, supplier management, event management and analytics, sales contact form, express benchmark analysis, and value assessment. The company's Enterprise Global Planning System (eGPS) software includes applications designed to help manufacturers manage a wide range of operations, including costs, factory scheduling, sales, inventory and materials management, and supply chain planning. The company’s enterprise global planning system solutions are used in various markets and industries, including semiconductor, aerospace, industrial, soft goods, automotive, electronics, chemicals, and CPG. Formerly known as Paragon Management Systems, Inc., the company changed its name to Adexa, Inc. 2000.

Full-suite Supply Chain Management Software
Definition: An inventory process software involving planning and processing orders; handling; transporting and storing all materials purchased, processed, or distributed; and managing inventories in a coordinated manner among all the players on the chain to fulfill customer orders as they arise rather than to build up stock level to fulfill anticipated future demand.