From Spreadsheets to Smart Allocation
As your trusted supply chain partner, we’re ready to help you solve your next challenge: freeing your team from spending their days in Excel deciding which orders to cancel, divert, or delay. FourKites Inventory Twin automates allocation decisions so you can serve tier-one customers first and eliminate manual planning overhead.
The Daily Spreadsheet Struggle
McCain’s partnership with FourKites has already delivered visibility across your complex global transportation network. We appreciate your trust, and we’re ready to extend that value to your next challenge: inventory allocation intelligence. Your operation is world-class – 89% vertiy integrated production across 12 countries, 14 global distribution centers, serving the world’s most demanding foodservice and retail customers. But when actual customer demand diverges from forecast, even world-class operations shouldn’t rely on manual spreadsheet workarounds.
We Understand McCain Foods’ Inventory Allocation Challenges
Planning System Can’t Adapt to Real Demand
Your demand forecasting and planning system creates stock transfer orders weeks in advance. But when actual customer orders arrive, reality diverges from the forecast. Your planning system treats orders as fixed and unchangeable – it won’t automatiy adapt when a high-priority customer orders more than expected or when production runs behind schedule. The system simply doesn’t account for execution reality.
The Daily Manual Workaround
Every day, your team extracts order data from SAP into spreadsheets to analyze conflicts. Which stock transfer orders should continue as planned? Which should be canceled because that DC no longer needs inventory? Which should be diverted to a different location facing a shortage? Should you delay some orders to prioritize others? These decisions consume the majority of your planners’ days, and then they manually upload the changes back into SAP. It’s not strategic work – it’s repetitive data manipulation.
Customer Hierarchy Under Pressure
You have a customer hierarchy for good reason. When inventory is constrained, you need to serve your tier-one customers first. McDonald’s demands 100% delivery and penalizes suppliers who fall short. Your other major retail and foodservice customers have similar OTIF requirements. But identifying which customer orders will be impacted by a stockout at a specific DC – and determining the optimal way to reallocate inventory to protect top customers – requires manual analysis across multiple systems.
Reactive, Not Proactive
By the time your team discovers a problem in their spreadsheet analysis, valuable time has passed. Products have already shipped to the wrong locations. Customer orders that should have been flagged as at-risk weren’t identified until too late. The manual analysis process means you’re always reacting to problems rather than preventing them, leading to expedited freight costs and customer service failures.
Intelligent Allocation, Automated Recommendations
FourKites Inventory Twin transforms how you make inventory allocation decisions – moving from manual spreadsheet analysis to AI-powered recommendations that account for real-time conditions across your entire network.
Phase 1A: See Problems Before Your Team Does
Automated Stockout Detection
Inventory Twin continuously monitors inventory levels, inbound stock transfers, production schedules, and customer orders across all your facilities. The system automatiy identifies where and when stockouts will occur, which products have excess inventory at other locations, and which high-priority customer orders face fulfillment risk. Instead of your team discovering these problems through manual spreadsheet analysis, Inventory Twin surfaces them proactively.
Customer Impact Assessment
The moment a customer order is placed, Inventory Twin assesses fulfillment risk based on current inventory positions, incoming shipments, and committed stock. You’ll know immediately if an order faces delivery risk and see which alternative facilities could fulfill it instead. Your team can prioritize tier-one customers and take action before penalties accrue – no manual cross-referencing required.
Phase 1B: From Analysis to Action
AI-Powered Stock Transfer Recommendations
Instead of manually determining which stock transfers to modify in spreadsheets, Inventory Twin’s AI analyzes your network and recommends specific actions: “Cancel STO from Plant A to Chicago DC – excess inventory,” “Divert existing STO from Atlanta to Dallas to prevent customer stockout,” “Create new STO from Phoenix to serve high-priority order.” Recommendations account for pallet quantities, weight, volume, and facility capacity constraints – the same factors your team considers manually, but calculated in seconds across your entire network.
Capacity Breach Prediction
Inventory Twin monitors dock and storage capacity at each facility, including your Americold warehouses. The system predicts when inbound/outbound volumes will exceed capacity 3+ days in advance, giving you time to adjust schedules, secure additional appointments, or reroute shipments. Your team stops firefighting capacity surprises and starts managing them proactively.
Seamless Integration With Your Existing Systems
Inventory Twin integrates with your SAP environment and planning systems – it doesn’t replace them, it enhances them. The solution works with your existing MRP cycles and data structures. Rather than forcing your team to adopt an entirely new planning process, Inventory Twin augments your current workflows by automating the manual spreadsheet analysis and recommendation generation that consumes so much time today.
Five Ways Inventory Twin Delivers Value
The value of Inventory Twin extends across your entire organization – from daily operational efficiency to customer relationship protection to strategic decision-making capabilities.
Reclaim Your Team’s Time
Eliminate the spreadsheet burden consuming your planners’ days. Instead of extracting data, analyzing conflicts in Excel, and uploading changes manually, your team focuses on true exceptions and strategic improvements. Companies with similar manual allocation processes have achieved 90% reduction in manual tracking tasks, saving 2-3 hours per person daily. That’s time redirected toward initiatives that drive competitive advantage rather than repetitive data manipulation.
Strategic Inventory Positioning
Make smarter source-from decisions with complete visibility across all 14 distribution centers and in-transit inventory. When one DC runs short, Inventory Twin instantly identifies which alternative locations can fulfill the order instead. Transform hours of manual analysis into seconds of automated recommendations. Source from the optimal location to meet customer commitments without penalties or expedited freight costs.
Protect Tier-One Customer Relationships
Make data-driven decisions about customer prioritization when inventory is constrained. Know within minutes of order placement if fulfillment is at risk. Receive advance warning of supply disruptions before they impact delivery commitments to McDonald’s and your other major customers. Your customer hierarchy becomes operationalized in the system rather than managed through manual judgment s under time pressure.
Reduce Costly Firefighting
Proactive stockout prediction means fewer emergency situations requiring expedited freight. When you identify allocation problems days or weeks earlier, ground transportation is still viable instead of premium air freight. Capacity breach warnings prevent dock scheduling conflicts and storage overflows. The combination of early warning and intelligent recommendations reduces reactive costs while improving service levels.
Enable Strategic Decision-Making
Your digital transformation initiatives and commitment to “collaboration across the value chain” require a foundation of accurate, real-time supply chain intelligence. Inventory Twin provides that foundation while working alongside your existing SAP, Americold, and planning systems. The 12-16 week implementation timeline means your team sees measurable value quickly – reducing manual work and improving allocation quality within the first quarter.
The World’s Leading Food & Beverage Brands Trust FourKites
Ready to Automate Your Allocation Decisions?
Let's discuss how Inventory Twin can eliminate manual spreadsheet work, protect your tier-one customer relationships, and deliver measurable value within your first quarter - all while integrating seamlessly with your existing systems.