Young's Seafood is launching a £1m overhaul of its demand forecasting system in a bid to react more swiftly to consumer demand and halve its long-term forecast error rate.
The move would enable the company to cut waste and ensure retail customers got exactly what they needed when they needed it, said supply chain manager Ian Ashbrook.
Its existing systems were struggling to cope with the volume of data following the growth of the business, which now boasts about 1,000 lines, he admitted.
"Young's has grown so fast and the product range has grown with it. Existing legacy systems are struggling to cope with the level of complexity."
During the first phase of Project Orion, which kicks off on 1 May, Young's will work with software provider TXT E-solutions to develop the new demand and planning systems. A demand planning function would go live in the autumn, prior to the integration of factory planning at a later date.
However, the emphasis was not just on technology, stressed Ashbrook, highlighting the appointments of a new forecast process manager and demand planner. "We're investing in people, processes and systems to transform demand planning."
The new system would allow Young's to run its stocks and service its customers more effectively, he added. "The important thing is that we improve our longer-term forecasts. We should be able to almost halve our forecast error," he said, predicting it would take six months to achieve half that and a further 12 for the rest.
"We want to be smarter about the way we use data. We're not responding quick enough to changes," he added. "And we could improve the view of demand we give suppliers and the way we service our retail customers."
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