The new planning edge for building-products manufacturers
Introducing Unison Planning™ for Building Products: the planning solution preconfigured for manufacturers of floor coverings, panels, countertops, plasterboards, and insulation. It delivers real benefits:
- Planning keeps pace with changing demand, ensuring products are always on the shelves.
- Limited manufacturing capacity is allocated for maximum efficiency and service.
- Multi‑stage batch manufacturing is fully controlled, with optimized batch sizes and minimized setup times.
- Transportation inefficiencies are minimized through integrated planning.
- Growing sustainability requirements are factored into every decision.
How does Unison Planning™ for Building Products work?
Based on a digital twin of your entire supply chain, including demand, sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, and recycling, Unison Planning provides full end‑to‑end visibility across tactical and operational layers, with comprehensive S&OP functionality and quota management. Its integrated campaign and multi‑stage batch planning optimize batch sizes and reduce setup times, while transport planning incorporates truckload optimization to improve distribution efficiency.
Science‑based demand forecasting
State‑of‑the‑art demand sensing and machine learning techniques turn real‑world data into short‑term demand predictions, reducing the lag and inaccuracy of traditional forecasting. By ingesting daily or weekly data such as POS records, distributor orders, contractor bookings, and external factors like housing market trends, planners gain actionable insights to improve manufacturing and inventory decisions.
Optimized, end‑to‑end inventory
Meeting customer demand with the right products in the right place requires a subtle balance between service levels, inventory, and transportation costs. Multi‑echelon inventory optimization (MEIO) helps the industry address supply chain planning challenges by reducing volatility, smoothing demand, and positioning stock more intelligently across the supply network.
Intermediate products in stock are automatically allocated to planned batches based on material characteristics, allowing companies to reduce inventory levels and lead times. Allocation and scheduling are optimized for critical criteria such as quality, cost, and lead time, and sustainability criteria can be embedded directly into inventory decisions.
Decision‑centric planning
Forecasted demand and orders can be prioritized in line with your business strategy, using rules such as on‑the‑shelf availability of high‑runners in large warehouses (make‑to‑stock) and 100% compliance with strategic customer SLAs (make-to‑order). Planners can easily create and run multiple simulations to evaluate the potential benefits and drawbacks of plan changes. Simulations may be triggered by market events or run proactively to continuously improve strategies and tactics, and to prepare for possible scenarios. They can also be used to optimize the sourcing and manufacturing networks in response to expected demand shifts.
Tactical and operational plans can be adjusted ad hoc when rapid responses are required. This decision‑centric planning capability is especially relevant in today’s dynamic geopolitical and economic environment, where tariff changes and other disruptions demand fast, well-informed decisions.
Proven industry expertise
The solution is implemented by OMP specialists with deep, hands‑on experience in the building‑products industry, ensuring relevance and rapid ROI.
So why choose Unison Planning™ for Building Products?
- Speed: Faster response to trend changes and new product launches.
- Accuracy: Forecast errors shrink thanks to pretrained models and demand sensing.
- Efficiency: Lower inventory, reduced lead times, and optimized transport.
- Profitability: Margins improve as efficiency increases and service levels rise.
- Quality and sustainability: Quality and environmental goals are baked into every plan.
Looking for real business results? Maximize service levels and profits with Unison Planning™ for Building Products.
Success stories
How Shaw Industries embraces global planning with OMP
Shaw Industries was seeking a single solution that could enable end-to-end planning across its various businesses. Rick Poe, Shaw’s Director of Supply Chain Business Services, is joined by executives from OMP to tell how the initiative was launched, and which results were obtained.
OMP provides groundbreaking planning solution for the wood veneer industry
To keep lead times short as customer expectations rise, the company holds significant inventories of raw materials and intermediate products. So they turned to OMP for a smart solution that would allow them to better plan their operations and optimize inventory levels.
Learn more
Key takeaways from the Consumer Goods Council
At the November 2024 Consumer Goods Council, CPG thought leaders met in Amsterdam for a powerful OMP Community session on using AI to enhance performance, adoption, and explainability in demand-driven supply chains. Explore the key insights from this dynamic discussion.
Read the takeaways
How Nestlé is turning AI and agility into real results across its end-to-end supply chain
Discover how Nestlé combines AI, agility, and connected planning with OMP’s Unison Planning™ to achieve measurable results across its global supply chain.
Read the takeaways
What keeps consumer goods leaders up at night?
How to bring winning strategies to life in the physical and information supply chain? How did P&G approach the information supply chain? And what was the impact of shifting to centralized planning? Bob Herzog, former Senior Director of Planning at P&G, sheds light on the key drivers for success in the consumer goods industry.
Listen to the podcast
Alpro’s journey towards supply chain excellence
Plant-based foods producer Alpro has made significant progress in making its supply chain more efficient, systematically taking advantage of the newest insights and solutions in supply chain planning.
Read the case studyWhat our customers say
"The main reason we chose OMP is that they're a one-stop shop that covers all the planning levels. Having an integrated planning solution is very important to Shaw's business. OMP has been a critical part of our planning landscape and drives the operations in all our business units."
Dana Shaffer, Director Demand Planning and Sales and Operations Planning at Shaw Industries
“We are now able to focus on the things that matter. We have the time and insights to focus on scenario management and decision-making documents for the S&OP meeting.”
Jose van den Berg, Project and Portfolio Manager at FrieslandCampina
“We wanted a solution that was fully integrated – built, engineered and designed that way. That’s where we found OMP.”
Rick Poe, Director of Supply Chain Business Services at Shaw Industries
“Unison Planning enables increased agility and synchronization. The supply chains of our products are now planned in Unison Planning consistently throughout the day. Its end-to-end approach optimizes the launch planning of new SKUs in our different markets while minimizing remnants on phase-out products and raw materials.”
Harald Fischer, Global Supply Planning Application Manager at Procter & Gamble
“OMP is the right partner, with the right technology, to help us achieve our vision.”
Gavin Revell, Director Business Engagement & Regional IS at pladis
“The breakthrough planning capability of Unison Planning speeds up how we respond to changes in demand. It gives us a clear view on the availability of bulk items and critical components, and allows us to reduce inventory levels, shorten lead times and avoid waste.”
Akil R. Lile, Director of Planning at Coty