Data-driven supply-and-demand planning helped Nissho break free from person-dependent processes while achieving both inventory reduction and stockout prevention.

Company Profile

• Industry: Trading company — automotive parts, electronic components, industrial materials
• Revenue: ¥50–100 billion
• Employees: 1,000–5,000

We spoke with four leaders at Nissho Corporation about why they adopted the SaaS-based SCM system PlanNEL, what they set out to achieve, and how their operations have changed since: Keisuke Hizawa, Director and Head of the Management Infrastructure Division; Emiko Uchida, Executive Officer and General Manager of the Business Administration Department; Shinji Tsujita, Deputy General Manager of the Logistics Planning Department within the Business Administration Department; and Akira Tanaka of the same Logistics Planning Department.

Could you start by telling us about your business?

Nissho was founded in 1958 as the sales arm of Nitto Denko Corporation. Today we are a specialized trading company handling industrial tapes and films, electronic materials, automotive components, and industrial materials.

Guided by our corporate message, “Contributing to our customers’ value creation through new ideas,” we serve customers across a wide range of industries — with the automotive sector at the core. Beyond simply selling products, we help optimize the entire supply chain, including procurement, logistics, and inventory management.

In recent years especially, companies are increasingly judged on how well they respond to globalization and sudden swings in demand. Reliable product supply and optimized inventory have become priorities for us as well, and we are focused on achieving both at a high level.

How are your departments organized to deliver SCM?

First, our sales division captures customer demand and passes that information to the operations teams at each site, which handle ordering and supply-demand coordination. From there, the information is shared through PlanNEL with the Logistics Planning Department inside operations, which handles inventory management, logistics strategy, and the design of processes and rules.

We do not have a dedicated department that owns SCM end to end. That is precisely why our goal is to build a structure in which every department draws on the same shared data in PlanNEL and can each make the best possible decisions.

What challenges were you facing before adopting PlanNEL?

Before PlanNEL, each person managed information in their own Excel files or relied on our in-house automated ordering system, so operations depended heavily on individual experience and know-how — everything became person-dependent. Because we relied on personal spreadsheets, data analysis took an enormous amount of effort, and balancing inventory reduction with stockout prevention was extremely difficult.

Specifically, when sales passed along customer demand and operations teams at each site were asked to hold stock, the basis for those requests came down to the salesperson’s intuition and experience — it did not exist as objective data. And on the receiving side, each person in operations responded using their own Excel file and their own methods. No one could see what anyone else was doing, data was not shared, and it was impossible to cover for one another.

We did have operating manuals, but a lot still came down to verbal handovers on the job. The result was a set of recurring problems: the rationale behind inventory settings was opaque, and the ability to respond to demand swings rested on specific individuals. Once the number of parts reached the tens of thousands, manual handling had clearly hit its limit. We needed to systematize the work to fundamentally reduce the operational burden.

How did you first learn about PlanNEL, and why did you choose it?

We first came across PlanNEL in an article in the logistics trade publication LOGI-BIZ.

At the time we were evaluating SCM systems with the goals of eliminating person-dependency and balancing inventory reduction with stockout prevention, and we compared about three products.

The other SCM systems we looked at stopped at managing inbound and outbound movement for a single site or warehouse. PlanNEL, by contrast, could optimize the entire supply chain — including the lateral connections that span multiple sites and customers — and its underlying philosophy felt like a natural fit for how we operate.

On features, too, PlanNEL manages everything from demand forecasting to demand planning, inventory planning, and replenishment planning in one place. It also brought in capabilities and ways of thinking our existing systems lacked — AI-based demand forecasting, statistical safety-stock calculation, ABC-XYZ analysis, dashboard visualization, and automatic calculation of order quantities and delivery dates. It covered everything we needed to take inventory management to a more advanced level.

As the trial progressed, we were able to thoroughly validate both the fit with our operations and the results. We also experienced the flexibility that only a SaaS solution can offer — ZIONEX quickly developed and rolled out the features we requested — along with accurate, responsive support from the ZIONEX team. All of this weighed heavily in our decision to adopt PlanNEL.

What changes and results have you seen since adopting PlanNEL?

It has been about a year since we adopted PlanNEL, and the biggest outcome is that we are shifting inventory management from “intuition and experience” to “data and logic.”

Where each person used to manage inventory in their own Excel files or systems, PlanNEL let us standardize the work. As a result, the reasoning — “this figure moved this way, so we’re setting inventory at this level for this reason” — is now transparent to both staff and managers. With the data visualized, departments share a common understanding, and handing over or covering work has become far easier. Our operations teams hold a weekly meeting, and we run study sessions for other departments as well to drive adoption even further.

We have also seen major time savings in day-to-day work. Building the PSI (Production, Sales, Inventory) management table, for instance, used to take about a week for the complex cases; now it is already complete the moment we open PlanNEL. On top of that, roughly 90% of the ordering we once did by hand has been replaced by automatic ordering through PlanNEL, which has significantly lightened the workload.

What would you like to do with PlanNEL going forward?

We want to make active use of PlanNEL for the plan-versus-actual inventory management and variance analysis that we simply never had the capacity for before. And as we use PlanNEL more, more and more data accumulates in the system — so we want to use that data to push demand-forecast accuracy even higher and further advance stockout prevention and inventory optimization.

We also want to integrate PlanNEL with our core business system to automate data ingestion, connecting it to even greater optimization across the entire supply chain.

Finally, do you have a message for readers of this case study?

Many companies that struggle with inventory management are wrestling with how to balance inventory reduction and stockout prevention.

We faced the same challenges, but we approached PlanNEL not as a mere system rollout but as an opportunity for business transformation.

What matters is not introducing the system itself, but using it to standardize operations and build a culture of data-driven decision-making. Within our company, we like to say: “It’s fine if you don’t master it perfectly — just don’t go back to the old way of doing things.”

PlanNEL is, we believe, a powerful system that supports that transformation from the ground up. We will keep improving and continue working to build an even stronger supply chain.

The post Elevating PlanNEL from a System Rollout into Company-Wide Business Transformation appeared first on Zionex Inc..

Industry: Outdoor Equipment & Apparel
Annual Revenue: ¥10–50 Billion
Employees: 500–1,000

We spoke with Mr. Takeshi Kawakami of the Sales Planning Department at Snow Peak about the reasons behind the adoption of the SaaS-based supply chain planning platform, the challenges the company faced before implementation, and the benefits realized afterward.

Could you tell us about Snow Peak’s business?

Snow Peak is an outdoor lifestyle company founded in 1958 in Sanjo City, Niigata Prefecture in Japan, a region well known for its manufacturing heritage.

Under our corporate message, “Bring the Outdoors into Everyday Life,” and our mission to “connect people with nature and with one another, restoring humanity through outdoor experiences,” we develop camping equipment and apparel while expanding globally into areas such as food and beverage, regional revitalization, and business solutions.

How is your SCM organization structured?

Our headquarters planning department develops company-wide policies based on inventory and sales data and coordinates allocation decisions across the organization.

Although each domestic and international location has its own personnel responsible for planning activities, headquarters takes the lead in making key decisions regarding procurement, inventory allocation, and supply planning.

What challenges were you facing before implementing PlanNEL?

Before adopting the supply chain platform, demand for camping products surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a situation in which supply could not keep up with demand.

At that time, our highest priority was meeting customer demand. Rather than focusing on sophisticated planning processes, we concentrated on securing as much production capacity as possible throughout the supply chain.

As the business continued to grow, however, a fundamental question emerged:

“Is our current ordering process really sufficient for the future?”

This discussion eventually led to the establishment of our Sales Planning Department.

Previously, orders were often placed whenever production capacity became available, without a structured process for evaluating whether those orders were truly aligned with future demand. We needed a framework that would enable more informed and objective decision-making.

Initially, we managed a basic PSI (Production, Sales, and Inventory) planning process using Excel. However, managing global operations with a small team created a tremendous workload.

Excel also made version management difficult. Since master data could not be managed effectively across planning cycles, separate files had to be created each month. As a result, comparing plan versions, tracking changes, and performing continuous analysis became extremely challenging.

After discussions with external SCM consultants, we concluded that implementing a dedicated supply and demand planning system was the best solution.

How did you learn about PlanNEL, and why did you choose it?

Our evaluation process began after consulting with Professor Yoshinobu Ueno of Kanazawa Institute of Technology Graduate School.

Naturally, we evaluated several alternative solutions. However, when balancing functionality against cost, PlanNEL was the only solution that met our requirements.

To be honest, the decision came down to two options:

“Implement PlanNEL, or continue operating as we were.”

Because our product portfolio and planning requirements are relatively straightforward, we did not require extensive customization. We determined that PlanNEL’s standard SaaS functionality was more than sufficient for our needs.

Initially, our primary objective was to improve forecasting accuracy through AI-driven demand forecasting.

However, through discussions with ZIONEX, we learned that PlanNEL could provide an integrated solution covering:

• AI Demand Forecasting
• Sales Planning
• Replenishment Planning

all within a single platform.

This was extremely attractive to us.

Using separate systems would have required significant effort to transfer and synchronize data. PlanNEL eliminates that complexity by providing a unified platform for the entire planning process.

Previously, planning relied primarily on forecasts generated by local teams and Excel-based analysis. With PlanNEL, we can now compare and evaluate both human forecasts and AI-generated forecasts side by side.

In addition to improving forecast accuracy, this enables us to provide objective, data-driven explanations whenever stakeholders ask:

“Why are these the numbers?”

That capability has been especially valuable.

What benefits have you experienced since implementing PlanNEL?

We have seen two major benefits.

1. A New Approach to Inventory Management

Initially, our focus was on preventing stockouts.

As our operations matured, however, the focus shifted toward maintaining inventory at the optimal level.

Previously, we applied the same safety stock policy across all products.

After implementing PlanNEL, we adopted ABC-XYZ Analysis, classifying products according to their sales contribution and demand variability within a nine-cell matrix. This allowed us to establish inventory policies tailored to each category.

Although multiple improvement initiatives contributed to these results, inventory levels have steadily declined.

At the same time, stockout rates have also decreased, demonstrating significant improvements in inventory planning accuracy and effectiveness.

2. Significant Reduction in Planning Workload

For products with stable demand patterns, we rely largely on PlanNEL’s forecast recommendations.

For products with greater demand variability, such as seasonal items, planners apply their expertise and judgment to refine the forecasts.

This hybrid approach has dramatically improved planning efficiency.

As the Sales Planning Department has matured, the reduction in operational workload compared with our previous Excel-based process has been substantial.

Another feature we highly value is the ability to document planning assumptions and decisions directly within the system.

Because these notes are retained across planning versions, we can easily review historical plans and understand:

• What events occurred
• Why specific planning decisions were made
• What assumptions supported those decisions

As our team grows, preserving and sharing this knowledge has become increasingly important.

How do you plan to use PlanNEL going forward?

Currently, we generate demand forecasts centrally across all warehouses and distribute the resulting figures to each location.

Going forward, we would like to move toward a collaborative planning model in which local sites contribute their own forecasts and planning inputs.

Our vision is to assign qualified demand and supply planners at each location. These planners will combine PlanNEL forecasts with local market intelligence to create plans that are then consolidated into a company-wide plan.

We have already improved inventory management across Snow Peak as a whole, but detailed inventory optimization between individual locations remains an area for improvement.

In the future, we plan to leverage PlanNEL to support more efficient inventory transfers and balancing activities between locations.

Any final message for companies considering PlanNEL?

PlanNEL is particularly well suited for organizations that want to establish a single set of numbers across the enterprise and use those numbers as the foundation for decision-making and communication.

Every company faces situations where forecast-based demand projections differ from budget targets.

When this happens, organizations often face a difficult choice:

Should we order based on the budget, or based on actual demand?

Many companies have experienced the consequences of ordering according to budget targets and ending up with excess inventory.

In these situations, PlanNEL provides a powerful foundation for objective decision-making.

Because discussions can begin from a common understanding of:

• The planning logic
• The forecasting algorithms
• The current optimal recommendation

teams can focus on determining the actions needed to close gaps between budget and forecast.

For example, discussions can shift toward questions such as:

• How should merchandising be adjusted?
• What promotional activities should be implemented?
• What actions will help achieve business objectives?

PlanNEL provides strong support for these strategic decisions.

For companies managing large SKU portfolios in particular, the efficiency gains can be substantial. If your organization faces similar challenges, PlanNEL is well worth exploring.

The post Breaking Free from Excel-Based Planning appeared first on Zionex Inc..