Supply chain planning tools for small and mid-sized businesses
Surface risks early, prioritise replenishment and production decisions, and make delivery commitments you can keep — in a planning tool built around the way your team already works.
The spreadsheet that runs the company
Almost every operation of this size has one: a planning workbook, maintained by one person, that everyone depends on. It encodes years of hard-won knowledge. It is also slow to update, easy to break, impossible to audit, and a serious risk the week that person is away.
The usual alternative is enterprise planning software priced and scoped for a company ten times the size, requiring a process change nobody has capacity for. Faced with that choice, most teams keep the spreadsheet. That is a rational decision.
There is a third option. Build a planning tool around the process that already works, remove the fragility, and leave the knowledge in place.
What we deliver
A tool scoped to your planning cycle, not a platform.
- A planning view showing demand, supply, coverage and exceptions together, refreshed automatically.
- Exception-driven workflow: what needs attention this cycle, ranked, rather than every item every time.
- Scenario comparison so a planner can test a change before committing to it.
- An S&OP pack generated from the same data, so the monthly meeting and the daily tool cannot disagree.
- Write-back into your ERP where the decision belongs there, rather than a second place to keep records.
- Documentation and handover, including the code and the infrastructure, under your own accounts.
How it works
-
Watch the current cycle
We sit with whoever runs planning today and follow a full cycle. What gets checked, in what order, and which steps exist because of something that went wrong once.
-
Separate the knowledge from the mechanics
The logic in that workbook is valuable and stays. The manual copying, re-keying and reconciliation is what we remove.
-
Automate the inputs
ERP extracts, supplier confirmations and sales data refresh on a schedule, with a check that tells someone when a source breaks rather than failing silently.
-
Build the planning view
Designed around the decisions, not the data model. Exceptions first, detail available, nothing that requires a manual to interpret.
-
Run both in parallel, then retire the spreadsheet
For at least one full cycle, so differences surface while the old process is still there. We only turn it off once the team trusts the new one.
What you need to get started
- The planning workbook as it exists today, however untidy. It is the most useful document you can give us.
- Read access to the ERP, or a scheduled export from it.
- Time with the person who runs the current cycle — a few hours across a cycle, not a full-time commitment.
Typical outcomes
- A planning cycle that does not depend on one person being available.
- Time moved from assembling the plan to deciding what to do about it.
- Sales and operations working from one agreed set of numbers.
- Delivery commitments based on current supply, not on optimism.
Common questions
Why build a tool instead of buying planning software?
Sometimes you should buy. If a package fits your process closely and you can afford the licence and the implementation, buy it. We build when the packages that fit are priced for companies ten times your size, or when the fit requires changing a process that is actually a competitive advantage. We will say which situation you are in.
What is S&OP and do we need it?
Sales and operations planning is a monthly cycle where commercial and operations teams agree one plan — one demand number, one supply plan, one set of trade-offs. You need it when sales and operations are working from different numbers. Most companies under about 200 people do not need the full formal process; they need the one meeting and the one agreed number.
Will this replace our ERP?
No. Your ERP remains the system of record for transactions. Planning tools sit alongside it, read from it, and write decisions back into it. Replacing an ERP is a different and much larger project, and it is rarely the right answer to a planning problem.
What does the tool actually run on?
Whatever your team already has, wherever possible. That is often a well-built model in your existing BI tool, or a web application if the workflow needs interaction. We avoid introducing a new platform for its own sake, and we tell you what it costs to run before we build it.
What happens if you stop working with us?
You keep everything: the source code, the documentation and the infrastructure, under your own accounts. We build on standard, widely known technology precisely so another developer can pick it up. No part of it depends on us continuing to be involved.
Find out what your data can already tell you
A free 30-minute data readiness assessment. We look at what you have, tell you what it can support today, and name the first thing worth building. No preparation needed.