6 May 2009

Today Typhoo Tea is an £80 million leading producer of tea exporting to 39 countries across the world with its headquarters located in Moreton, Merseyside, UK.

The company was created in November 2005 as a result of the Apeejay Surrendra group purchasing the Typhoo Tea name and its various brands from Premier Foods. The company combines Typhoo Tea’s brand heritage with the experience of Apeejay Surrendra, who are the third largest exporters of tea from India and have over 100 years of tea growing experience. This new partnership helps give Typhoo Tea, their customers and the end consumer a product of guaranteed quality.

Typhoo Tea relies heavily on accurate forecasting to help maintain a synchronised supply chain and drive its bottom line profitability. This is crucial as its 11 different brands comprise of over 400 products which are supplied to everyone from the largest grocery chains down to the small independents.

Improving demand forecasting without a drop in service levels because of a change of ownership was critical for the company. The continued expansion into new markets serves to add complexity to its supply chain, putting extra pressure on getting forecasting performance right.

The commodity aspect of tea buying is easily affected by fluctuating prices and seasonality. Having a good understanding of demand patterns and pushing this information upstream to suppliers is critical to supply chain efficiency and therefore to supply chain profitability.

Constraints, such as lead times put on by suppliers, have knock on effects - for instance, inflated stock holdings, which require not only demand visibility, but also the ability to shape it.

Typhoo Tea’s challenge was based on two requirements – to implement a demand planning system within three weeks, and to substantially improve demand forecasting accuracy.

The urgency behind the need for fast implementation was based on the fact that from April 2007, the company would be unable to continue using the Premier Foods demand planning system. In addition, the system not only needed to be up and running in record time, but it also had to easily integrate with Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP system.

Microsoft partner TXT’s supply chain management expertise within the consumer goods industry and more specifically in the food and beverage industry meant that Typhoo Tea could rely on TXT to deliver the ideal solution. This was based on its functionality and the ability to deliver the project within a short time frame. TXT’s experience of delivering demand forecast management solutions that easily integrate with the Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP system was also a critical factor; particularly as the solution needed to be implemented within 3 weeks.

The fast implementation of TXTDemand within three weeks was ideal as it allowed Typhoo Tea to see the results in a short time frame. The solution targeted the rapid improvement of Typhoo Tea’s demand forecasting capabilities through TXTDemand’s ability to harness statistical data and empower users to create consensus decision forecasts.

More specifically, the demand forecasting component enabled the comprehension, quantification and time planning of demand through analysis of historical data and advanced forecasting techniques. The demand definition process allows for forecasting over various time frames. Data can be gathered by markets, distribution channels, products and product families. The application supports a rolling forecast process through analysis of forecasts and results.

The improvement of Typhoo Tea’s forecasting capabilities means that it now has a more timely and accurate picture of future demand. The company also benefits from shorter forecast cycle times, which will ultimately help reduce unnecessary over-stocks, whilst helping increase service levels due to greater ability to meet demand.

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