Kinaxis and bluecrux team up on supply chain transformations

Ottawa-based supply chain consultancy Kinaxis has entered an alliance with bluecrux, a Belgium-based consulting firm also focused on supply chain and operations advisory. As part of the alliance, the firms will work with joint customers on digital transformation and supply chain planning efforts.

Bluecrux helps clients across life sciences, food & beverage, manufacturing, service logistics and parts, and chemicals optimize their supply chain, manufacturing process, and digital systems. The firm delivers offerings across the areas of planning, distribution, transformation, operations, workforce, and customer, and has served numerous high-profile clients such as Pfizer, Toyota, and ABInBev. Bluecrux has more than 65 professionals across two offices in Belgium, and one in Jersey City, NJ.

"For many years, we have distinguished ourselves from others in the market by fully concentrating on the digital planning transformation of our customers and the fusion of their physical and digital worlds. We like to call this their 'phygital' world," said Anouk Schoenmakers, a bluecrux partner. "As digital technologies have the potential to transform companies' value chains completely, employees also need to be able to keep up. At bluecrux, we focus on both aspects.

“Through our relationship with Kinaxis, we can offer our clients an expanded, market-leading approach that will help revolutionize the way they operate."

The alliance combines bluecrux’s operations consulting and digital transformation expertise with the Kinaxis RapidResponse planning platform. Kinaxis’ RapidResponse software concurrently manages supply chains, allowing for real time data integrated into a single cloud-based system where processes are faster, more responsive, and easily adaptable.

Kinaxis says its solutions can reduce finished goods inventory by 33%, manufacturing lead times by 20%, and planning cycles by 57%. Research consultancy Gartner placed Kinaxis in its Leadership quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Systems of Record – alongside giants SAP and Oracle – for the third consecutive year in 2018.

The alliance with bluecrux will initially focus on clients in the European market, according to a release from the firm. The two consultancies serve clients in many of the same industries, including consumer products, industrials, and life science.

"Over the past couple of years, Kinaxis has been making great investments to expand our presence in Europe," said John Sicard, CEO of Kinaxis. "Bluecrux brings the knowledge in process transformation, advanced data methods, and strong implementation and change management skills that align well with the growing Kinaxis customer base in Europe. We are excited to have bluecrux join the growing Kinaxis ecosystem and community of partners."

Last year, Kinaxis teamed up with Delloite to build digital supply network solutions for the auto, medical device, and aerospace & defense industries.

Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Ottawa, Kinaxis has additional offices in the US, the UK, The Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. The firm has approximately 500 employees, and is publicly listed on the TSX.