Microsoft End-to-End Supply Chain Management Solution: Design, Testing and Implementation
Microsoft is one of the largest tech companies in the world, with sales revenue of over 90 billion US dollars. The company has over 30,000 products with a large variation in life cycles, more than 13 contract manufacturers, and 12 distribution centers. Many of its sales come from selling physical devices, and this exposes the company to an accompanying level of complexity and uncertainty. In 2015, Goldratt Research Labs was contracted by Microsoft to design, validate, pilot, and implement an end-to-end Supply Chain Management solution based on Theory of Constraints (see White Paper) best practices. This formed part of Microsoft’s “One Devices Supply Chain” (1DSC) solution designed to achieve:

• One set of Planning, Execution and Improvement rules for managing all products and order fulfillment strategies within Microsoft’s supply chain.
• One system (SAP) in which to implement these rules.

A critical part of the project was for Goldratt Research Labs to develop a self-configurable Supply Chain simulation model using AnyLogic to validate the likely operational and financial improvements that would be achieved from the TOC based solution design before going live.