A Study On Kodak Paper Supply Chain Demand Management Improvement In Asia-Pacific Region

Eastman Kodak is a multinational company with nearly130-year history. In the past100years Kodak has been operating in traditional business which mainly covers film andpaper. However, due to the rapid development of IT industry and global competition,Kodak’s traditional business has a sharp decline in demand. Under new circumstance,Kodak had to face the reality and adjust its business direction. One of the Kodak2009-2012strategic goals is to continue to maintain its traditional business revenue tosupport the development of digital business. To achieve this goal, agile paper supply chainis required to develop more competitive advantage, which will be more quickly to meetcustomer needs and better control inventory. As an important part of agile paper supplychain, Kodak paper business in Asia-Pacific region needs to be improved in many aspects.This article will mainly focus on the improvement of demand management.The thesis mainly analyzes the current process, major problems and major impactfactors of paper demand management in Asia-Pacific region. Then it dwells on how toimprove paper demand management based on APO. First, as the key user and supply chaincoordinator of paper supply chain management, planners should take responsibilities forpaper demand forecasting and take advantage of APO to do quantitative analysis on paperdemand. Second, based on the development situation of Kodak Asia-Pacific supply chain,propose to develop Asia-Pacific paper agile supply chain demand management concerningthe forecasting administration and process management. Finally, it expatiates on theexecution of agile paper supply chain demand management in Asia-Pacific region, whichmainly covers three aspects. First, to improve paper forecast accuracy by strengtheningsynergy between Kodak planning department and sales teams. Second, to optimize paperdemand plan to improve stock replenishment plan, production plan, capacity assessmentand material procurement plans. Third, to improve key performance appraisal to monitorthe implementation of agile paper supply chain demand management.In this thesis, quantitative, qualitative methods and case study are applied. By studyon the improvement of demand management, it intends to increase the paper forecastaccuracy and optimize the paper demand plan to improve various inventory replenishmentplan, capacity assessment, production plan and material procurement plan, thenaccordingly quickly meet customer demands and control inventory levels so that ultimatelyattain the goal of maintaining the income of paper business to develop digital business. Inthis article, the innovation lies in the establishment of the demand forecast in planningdepartment and the establishment of collaborative paper demand forecasting betweenplanning department and sales teams in Asia-Pacific region.