Almost all, if not all of the DELMIA Quintiq customers and / or prospects are using Enterprise Resource Planning solutions.
Generally, there are 3 tiers of ERP solutions with solutions like SAP and Oracle belong to the Tier 1, while solutions like Epicor, Sage, Infor and Microsoft belong to the Tier 2 and lastly solutions like Quickbooks that belong to Tier 3.
There are differences among the 3 tiers. However, this post will not delve into the ERP details.
An Enterprise Resource Planning or in short ERP solution, as we know is used to manage business activities such as accounting, procurement, sales, inventory and supply chain operations at the very least.
Therefore, by itself, an ERP has some basic functionalities that can help an organization to perform demand planning and supply planning. So, at some point, the question will arise, what are the differences between DELMIA Quintiq (Demand Planning & Supply Planning) vs. ERP.
Note: The tier 1 ERP solutions have extension modules that can help an organization to do more comprehensive demand planning and supply planning. However, that should be a separate topic and should be classified as a different comparison against DELMIA Quintiq.
The purpose of this post is to provide an understanding of the key differences between DELMIA Quintiq (Demand Planning & Supply Planning) in particular Demand Planner & Macro Planner vs. ERP (basic).
Demand Planning
| Comparison | DELMIA Quintiq | ERP |
|---|---|---|
| Demand review | Past performance review of the cumulative revenue vs. cumulative budget. The planners will be alerted in case of low forecast accuracy of the past period. | Manual review of the past period's low forecast accuracy. |
Statistical Forecast | Generation of statistical forecast through Automated Model Selection, which the best model is selected based on the lowest error prediction after historical data analysis. | Manual decision to add (or minus) the percentage based on historical sales data. |
Demand sensing | Multivariate Forecast allows planners to include the future trends and parameters as part of the Forecast to enhance the forecast accuracy based on future indexes. | Manually calculated and input into the Forecast. |
| Forecast enrichment Pareto Analysis or ABC/XYZ classification | Auto classification based on historical data, e.g. classify the customers and/or products. | Manually assign classification or mostly inventory ABC analysis. |
| Collaboration | Demand forecast can be further enhanced with Sales Forecast & Collaborative Forecast through a single platform. | Other Departments usually prepare their Forecasts outside of the system, i.e. Excel spreadsheet to be imported into ERP later. |
| Opportunities management | Opportunities can be created, weighted, tracked and included in the forecast. | Manual decision to add the effect of the opportunity to the forecast. |
| Promotional and New Product Introduction events management | Promotional and New Product Introduction events can be created, tracked and included in the forecast. | Manual decision to add the demand from promotional and new product introduction events into the forecast. |
Supply Planning
| Comparison | DELMIA Quintiq | ERP |
|---|---|---|
| Digital / Virtual Twin | Real life end-to-end Supply Chain design is being virtual twin (replicated) into the solution for planning including the constraints, capacities and business rules. | Impossible to include whole supply chain properties, e.g. capacity of suppliers. |
Multiple planning time buckets | Planning can be performed for multiple time buckets such as Daily, Weekly, Monthly. | Single time bucket. |
KPI-based optimization | Supply plans are optimized based on KPI. | Heuristic planning based on certain grouping / sorting, e.g. customers, products, due dates. |
Capacity planning | Maximize the utilization of the resources by matching the capacity with the demand and identify the bottleneck. | High-level resource planning. |
Scenario comparison | What-if KPI-based scenario can be created and compared to gain insights to help management to make better informed decisions. | None or high level comparison. |
Inventory planning | Inventory level planning based on current & future demands, current & future capacity, lead time & maintaining safety stock level. Solution generates safety stock level based on demand, lead time and their uncertainties. | Safety stock generation based on historical or manual planning. |
