Altia Streamlines Forecasting and Purchase Planning With RELEX

Anora (formerly Altia), a leading manufacturer and wholesaler of alcoholic beverages in the Nordic and Baltic region, has chosen RELEX technology to support its demand forecasting and purchase planning.

The company had set itself the goal of making its supply chain and processes more efficient in particular by standardising its work practices across the various markets in which it operates, by improving the accuracy of its forecasting and by increasing visibility across its global demand forecasting.

As the company has production and warehousing facilities in several countries, Altia also wanted better system support for managing logistics within the Group.

– Collecting and analysing data for the entire group had been a major challenge. It was also very time consuming to collate and present all the data. RELEX’s solution makes it easy to set up and automate reports for a wide range of purposes and needs. For example we can examine forecasts for all our markets in a single display, both as an overview and in detail, explains Lauri Helin from Altia, who had ultimate responsibility for the project.

The pilot phase began in December 2012, just three months after Altia decided to try RELEX systems, and focused on forecasting and procurement planning solutions for its Finnish operations. It has subsequently been rolled out across Sweden and Denmark.
The schedule for implementing RELEX’s systems was tight. The system came into use just three months after the start of the pilot phase. Despite the demanding timetable and the broad scope of the project, both in terms of functionality and geography, all Altia’s goals were achieved as planned. The project made use of a standard interface for SAP developed specially for RELEX by Acando.

Introducing RELEX systems has brought concrete results. Forecast accuracy has improved, many repetitive tasks have been automated and planning data has been organised across Altia’s operations to make it far more accessible, comprehensible and useful.

– RELEX has been a very accommodating partner. The company has clearly mastered planning processes and also has a good feel for the SAP environment and that was reflected in how quickly and smoothly the systems were integrated, says Altia project manager Jussi Hyvärinen.

Altia’s next step is to apply RELEX technology in Estonia and Latvia.

– Our main goals are making our forecasts for the Nordic and Baltic regions more transparent and harmonising working practices across our multinational operations. RELEX’s versatile reporting tools are giving us a clearer picture of the group’s situation. They’re adaptable, flexible, and worked almost in real time, Helin concludes.