IKEA has operated for over 60 years now, with operations all over the globe. The company success is seen in different parts of the company from offering affordable products, sustainable products with great designs and functional organization. With out forgetting their strong supply chain, which is considered to be among the top companies that can manage their global operations effective and efficiently.
Their supply chain has evolved over years; for example in 1950’s they had a few suppliers compared to know making their supply chain more complex. Where the advancement in world technology, has helped their business model. IKEA have now initiated a program aimed at taking better control of its supply chain and enhancing performance in terms of delivery service and costs.
The most crucial part that has been changed over the years by IKEA is introducing new planning concept, which is currently being implemented. Its cornerstones are mutually integrated planning processes, a centralized planning organization; focus on data quality, and use of advanced software support. As a first step in developing the new planning concept, IKEA centralized all forecasting activities and need calculations in order to control stock levels and replenishment throughout the whole supply chain.
The new planning process starts with corporate sales planning, which sets the frames for the, tactical demand planning activities at the 12 business areas. The forecasts are thereafter input to the need planning process, which in turn drives the supplier capacity planning process and the planning of the distribution supply chain (transport, warehouse, and retail-store planning).
The planning process is owned by a central function at IKEA of Sweden (IoS), where decisions concerning the number of articles, purchasing, suppliers, distribution, and retail-store coordination are made. As such, IoS is the center of all