Case Study: AutomationDirect doubles planner capacity and boosts service levels with Demand Solutions DSX

Automationdirect Keeps its Product Pipeline Humming

AutomationDirect, a pioneer in direct-selling and e-commerce for industrial automation, needed to keep a steady stream of new products while increasing integration and planner functionality. After managing product releases for 11 years on Demand Solutions DS1 and evaluating 25 vendors (narrowed to three), AutomationDirect chose to upgrade to Demand Solutions DSX to gain stronger forecasting, planning and system integration capabilities.

Demand Solutions implemented DSX Forecast Management and Requirements Planning (running on SQL Server) with features like ranges, filters, bills of materials, dashboards, exception management and automatic PO import. The DSX rollout let AutomationDirect use ABC analysis to focus on A/B items (25% of SKUs, 90% of revenue) while trusting DSX for C/D items, doubled the number of parts each planner can handle, simplified vendor forecasts and raised service levels from 97% to 97.5%—demonstrating measurable time savings and improved customer experience with Demand Solutions DSX.

AutomationDirect

Tim Carroll

Purchasing Director