My first experience with AnyLogistix

AnyLogistix is a software solution with features for supply chain optimization and simulation, applications and use cases vary from logistics network design, inventory management and production capacity planning.
After an introductory session during a recent lecture, I will document my thoughts on the solution from using their Personal Learning Edition. Note that this version has restricted functionality, mainly being it only supports "as the crow flies" distance measurement, whereas commercial versions also support road distance measurement, which is always going to be more beneficial in a real world scenario.

AnyLogistix offers three main types of analysis;
- Green Field analysis: finding the best approximate site locations based on demand / customers
- Network Optimization: deciding the best route for product flow
- Simulation: verifying previous decisions and testing inventory and procurement strategies

I found the Greenfield analysis most interesting of the three. Reviewing site locations by inputting customers lat longs and demand, the solution would then calculate the optimal locations to minimize travel/cost. This could be used for DC's or factories.

The other two modules were useful but I feel they were more geared towards collaborative decisions spanning the entire supply chain. The main challenge I could foresee (from my limited experience) for organisations wanting to implement the solution, would be cleansing and getting the data in the correct format for AnyLogistix. For example the small case study type scenario which we run through had over 25 different excel sheets which would need updated and maintained to run the analysis on the regular. This just doesn't feel viable for use in any day to day operations without the aid of third party application to help with the data manipulation.

For global, complex supply chains I could certainly see the appeal, however for small and medium sized business with minimum interaction with the wider supply chain it doesn't seem to justify the $20k+ annual subscription. I imagine for their decision making, organisations could see comparable results from use of Excel / Python (using packages such as Pulp and SimPy.