Supply Chain Optimization

However great your challenge, we work with you to deliver a customized solution that will continue to add value well beyond our engagement period. We can help you:

• Uncover business expansion opportunities 
• Plan for contingencies 
• Set optimal planning targets
• Make smarter investments
• Promote public sector economic growth and development
• Improve transportation efficiencies and reduce costs
• Determine supply chain risk in global markets
• Improve your purchasing operations and secure your sources of supply

IHS Supply Chain Consulting offers distinct benefits to public and private sector clients anywhere in the world.

Public Sector Organizations are able to:

• Attract investment, spur on innovation and competitiveness and promote private-public partnerships  
• Prioritize investments given limited budgetary means  
• Understand the impact of proposed policies, regulations and large public capital investments on the economy  
• Support the due diligence needed to attract government investment funds for public infrastructure projects

Private Sector companies enjoy the enhanced ability to: 

• Identify growth and laggard markets  
• Develop sales forecasts and set targets  
• Reduce key input costs  
• Understand key drivers of and anticipate price fluctuations  
• Estimate long-term capital investment projects  
• Negotiate with suppliers  
• Track purchasing performance  
• Evaluate global sources of raw materials

Learn more about our projects and services, or contact us for an exploratory meeting.

Client Challenge: Promote public sector economic growth and development

IHS Consultants can help you:

• Assess the economic development investments required to promote commercial centers in your area 
• Conduct cost-benefit analyses of proposed capital spending projects 
• Evaluate the impact of proposed legislation, regulation and infrastructure projects on the local or regional economy 
• Rank infrastructure projects among regional stakeholders - See Case Study #1 under the Case Studies tab

IHS Consultants can help you:

• Optimize distribution center locations 
• Negotiate current and anticipate future shipping rates - See Case Study #2 under the Case Studies tab
• Benchmark freight rates across all modes 
• Extract true freight costs from goods moving pre-paid from shipper, so your transportation costs become transparent 
• Allocate sales, marketing and fleet resources 
• Develop strategic port plans

Client Challenge: Purchase energy supplies from secure suppliers

IHS Consultants can help you:

• Identify, assess and monitor political, geopolitical, security and societal risk in states and regions facing your suppliers - See Case Study #3 under the Case Studies tab
• Determine vendor viability and supply chain risks 
• Weigh market growth potential against business risks for different global regions and determine the profit margin needed to compensate for risk 
• Allocate strategic resources to the right markets

Client Challenge:  Streamline pricing and purchasing operations

IHS Consultants can help you:

• Identify and reduce key input costs 
• Create and maintain budgets 
• Track company purchasing performance - See Case Study #4 under the Case Studies tab
• Make more informed, timely purchasing decisions 
• Quantify supplier cost structures for effective negotiations and improved project cost estimations 
• Select the most reliable and cost-effective key commodity suppliers 
• Receive customized, detailed sourcing data

Contact us for an exploratory meeting.

Case Study #1: Resolve Critical Regional Transportation Problems

Challenge: The public agencies of a major metropolitan inland distribution area faced multiple infrastructure projects and limited funding. They needed to optimize their budget allocations in the most efficient way possible by prioritizing the infrastructure projects among regional stakeholders.

Solution: IHS Consulting led a multifaceted team to develop a regional infrastructure plan. With multiple potential projects to fund, prioritizing these projects meant understanding future freight flows and global supply chain trends that would affect the region's transportation system. Focusing on the most critical infrastructure improvements helped us to leverage limited funding and highlight economic development opportunities.

Results: The infrastructure plan developed by IHS Consulting used our proprietary Transearch® database to project future domestic and international freight activity in the region. The plan produced a series of infrastructure recommendations to prioritize regional freight infrastructure investment in the metropolitan area.

Case Study #2: Save a Transportation Equipment Manufacturer $2.2 Million in a Single Purchase

Challenge: A transportation equipment manufacturer bought engines from automobile makers. When an increase in a supplier's contract called that pricing into question, the company turned to us for advice.

Solution: With the help of IHS Global Insight Pricing and Purchasing Service, we analyzed data which showed that the price of motors had been falling in previous years and would continue to decline for several more years. This finding, combined with the IHS Global Insight forecast of flat or declining prices for engine components, clearly showed a lack of cost pressure to justify the supplier's bid.

Results: The transportation equipment manufacturer was able to negotiate a favorable price adjustment - a $2.2-million savings.

Case Study #3: Monitor Threats to Oil Operations in Iraq

Challenge: Since July 2009, IHS Consulting, through IHS Jane's, has provided monthly assessments of the oil security environment in Iraq.

Solution: These highly concise reports track the threat level to oil infrastructure, operations and personnel and also the intent, capabilities and activities of insurgent and terrorism groups operating in Iraq. IHS compiles these reports through open source research and analysis and by gathering input from contacts based in Iraq.

Results: IHS consultants meets monthly with clients to discuss the report and level of risk to their oil security and oil operations in various cities and regions across Iraq.

Case Study #4: Assist a Diversified Manufacturer of Electronic Equipment with Formulating a Company-wide Cost Management Program

Challenge: As part of cost containment initiative, the purchasing department of an electronic equipment manufacturer needed to develop a formal cost benchmarking model that would track and forecast material cost inflation by commodity, equipment component or service. IHS Consulting worked in tandem with the purchasing department staff to analyze the company's purchases.

Solution: We identified more than 500 separate buys for which the company maintained procurement data and assigned each buy an escalation benchmark. We then developed tracking mechanisms for each assigned price measure. The final model, in use today, provides escalation measures - both historical and forecast - that the company compares against its own data. This customized model provides an objective third-party benchmark that measures the purchasing department's performance in managing cost inflation. The company uses it as a strategic tool to set performance targets for all its purchasing managers.

Results: As part of the company-wide Best Cost Producer strategy, the benchmarking model reduced materials procurement costs dramatically - by an estimated at $60 million in its first year.