This paper raises some important challenges to tactical supply chain management and control from the point of view of a fast moving consumer goods industry. Factory utilizations are higher than ever before as a result of strategic regional and global sourcing owing to pressures from increased asset utilization which has resulted in increased strains in the supply chain. For example, planning marketing promotions with major retailers would require detailed factory scheduling in addition to planning. Information regarding sales and marketing intelligence tend to be very uncertain which has to be taken into account while considering tradeoffs between reallocating production in time or to other sites in the regional sourcing network; otherwise, this could lead to high noise amplifications in the supply chain from the point of sales through the distributor stocks to factory production, resulting in higher costs and lower customer service. Practical examples are numerous where the consumer offtake is relatively flat while the material transactions upstream in the supply chain undergo wild fluctuations. Hence sales forecasting, detailed factory scheduling, logistical constraints and reallocation of demand to different points in the sourcing network along with the associated costs need to be considered in an integrated framework to facilitate effective decision making. Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing and Logistics considerations should be unified in a decision support system capable of functioning in real time. In this paper, our initial efforts in this area are discussed with practical examples from the consumer goods industry to stimulate further work in this direction.
