Before:
Hindered Growth Due to Inefficient Supply Chain and Manual Planning Processes
As Dexcom experienced rapid growth, they encountered several significant challenges emphasizing the need for improvements to their operations. They faced increasing lead times in their supply chain, which at times hindered their ability to meet market demands promptly. They needed more agile and informed decision-making capabilities, since every decision held greater financial implications. Planning cycles were executed through systems such as Microsoft Excel, resulting in little to no centralization of data. As a result, these practices became cumbersome and manually intensive for their R&D planning team.
There was a clear need for an intelligent, integrated system capable of offering data-driven insights. Dexcom needed to prioritize the development of a rapid end-to-end R&D supply planning system at scale, with the goal of removing planning constraints and accelerating the launch of new products and market expansion plans.
Solution:
Spaulding Ridge + Anaplan for Planning and Data Quality Enhancement
The scope of work for Spaulding Ridge encompassed several crucial objectives. End-to-end supply planning capabilities were established first, specifically tailored to Dexcom’s engineering product builds and testing. To achieve this, the team redesigned existing business processes within the Anaplan platform, creating a more efficient and visually intuitive solution with real-time scenario analysis, facilitating rapid decision-making.
Additionally, Spaulding Ridge enabled comprehensive component planning for raw materials and finished assembly, including Material Requirements Planning (MRP), fixture planning, test preparation services, and logistic planning. The team also implemented real-time executive reporting mechanisms to monitor cost and inventory trends, enabling scenario management across Dexcom’s R&D supply chain and enhancing their operational efficiency and agility.