Imagine that you could somehow know every product movement that will be taking place in your supply chain, every day for the next 52 weeks. POS sales for every product at every store on every day for the next year. Every replenishment and shipment request between every store, distribution centre and manufacturing plant in the extended supply chain.

Imagine that this information is completely updated, refreshed and extended on a daily basis. When POS sales come in higher or lower than expected, the precise impact to every other node in the supply chain is instantly and automatically modeled. If store sales were higher than expected today, not only are the DCs and plants notified, but their replenishment and manufacturing schedules will be automatically updated to reflect the impact of the change on their operations.

Imagine how your fill rate would soar with these early warning signals continually hopping through the supply chain – not only with “news from the front” but with specific actions that need to be taken by each partner on the way through to respond.

Imagine how productive your assets (particularly inventory) would be if your planning information was so virtuous that you could wait until the last possible moment to deploy them and still make your service commitments.

No matter where you play in the retail/CPG supply chain, you’ve been aching to work this way for years, but it’s been just beyond your grasp. The POS is being collected and stored. The communication links have been established. The computing horsepower is astounding. What you lack is a concrete, simple and transparent approach for using it all.

Well, you can stop imagining. It’s time to start Flowcasting your supply chain.