“Supply Chain Innovation of the Year” – SCIP receives award

The solution SCIP – “Supply Chain Integrated Planning” designed and developed by Milestone Consult for Bayer Crop Science wins the “Supply Chain Innovation of the Year” award of Kentucky University! The Kentucky University jury found SCIP to be a significant contributor to addressing an industry-specific problem: lack of predictability of demand in the agricultural sector.

As an agribusiness company, Bayer Crop Science faces the challenge of difficult-to-plan product demand from farmers every year. This is because the demand for Bayer's products, typically seeds, fungicides, pesticides and fertilisers, depends on crop growth and thus on the weather. Thus, certain agents are applied depending on the stage of development of the plant and are then applied in very large quantities within a very short time. Often a few days are decisive here. This makes it difficult for Bayer, as well as for its customers, to provide the right product at the right time in the right place – the customer's consignment warehouse. At this interface, efficient, clear and direct communication, as enabled by the SCIP platform, is the success factor for the optimal coordination of demand.

SCIP provides growers with a modern interface that allows growers to plan their own demand by location- and to view current inventory levels in their own consignment stores. Together with the delivery dates promised and planned by Bayer via SCIP, this creates maximum transparency for both parties regarding actual, planned and required stock quantities, as well as planned requirements and possible deliveries.

Furthermore, SCIP also helps farmers plan for expected crop development. By providing all historical weather data from the US Department of Agriculture, growers can compare current weather trends with previous years to better assess how crops will perform in the current year. Transparent communication and improved planning avoid unnecessary stock movements between the Commission's warehouses, Bayer can easily assess which warehouses can also be made available to other customers and farmers can ensure that they have the right products at the right time. In this way, costs are reduced, yields are increased and the environment is protected.

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This is the third award for SCIP from KentuckyUniversity. Back in 2017, Bayer Crop Science received the “Customer Innovation of the Year” and “Supply Chain Breakthrough of the Year” awards with SCIP. As a key player in the development of SCIP, Milestone Consult is particularly pleased to have been part of this successful journey since 2014:

“From a digital perspective, what has come out of the SCIP project is much more than business intelligence or big data. With innovative and agile approaches, we have developed an optimised collaboration platform for Bayer Crop Science that saves costs and is easy to use. For the future, topics such as machine learning(AI) or the further expansion to a supply chain suite that also enables the middleman or end customer to simplify ordering are on the agenda” – Andreas Valkysers, Consulting Manager at Milestone Consult.

“What SCIP has been pushing in the marketplace is not rocket science. It comes down to developing an intimate understanding of our customers, relentlessly solving problems, and never compromising the fundamentals that create value. Bayer and Milestone live this ideal every day and the results speak for themselves!” – Gregg Dibble, former Global SC Service Manager, Bayer AG.