Case What’s Cooking?

To step away from firefighting and move toward proactive decision making, What’s Cooking partnered with Solventure to implement Arkieva as their new advanced planning software.

A supply chain where precision is essential

Fresh food requires high service levels combined with low inventory. Promotions and retail requirements change quickly, leaving little time to react. The search for a new APS system began with a clear ambition to increase agility, reduce operational friction and bring all planning activities together in one structured environment.

Clear objectives for a smarter planning future

The business case for a new APS solution focused on several key expectations. These included increasing service levels, improving logistics and labour efficiency and reducing inventory write offs. Maintaining the status quo would still require significant investments in licenses, forecasting tools and ongoing maintenance of Excel based workflows.

Following a thorough selection process, What’s Cooking chose Arkieva and Solventure. The combination of strong software capability and a partner that understands the realities of the food industry made this choice a natural fit.

With the direction set, the company defined a series of clear objectives for the implementation:

• Move from reactive to proactive planning
• Strengthen collaboration across departments
• Integrate the full supply chain and increase transparency
• Improve efficiency and performance in areas such as planning quality, obsoletes and service levels

Importantly, the APS initiative was not positioned as a project for the Supply Chain department alone. It was designed as an integrated business project involving multiple teams, including Demand Planning, RCCP and S&OP, Supply Planning and Procurement.

The ingredients for APS success

To ensure success, What’s Cooking identified a set of essential elements for the implementation. These include strong data integration and validation, consistent project governance, effective change management and regular feedback loops with key users.

Together with Solventure, the organization is bringing different functions and management layers around a shared understanding of what needs to improve and a shared willingness to make it happen. When everyone understands the challenge, it becomes easier to define the direction and keep the organization engaged throughout the journey.

Early lessons from the first tasting

While the APS implementation is still progressing, several early lessons stand out. Data quality always requires more work than initially expected. Daily operational issues continue during the project and require careful time management. The entire process is more of a marathon than a sprint and benefits from realistic pacing and strong preparation.

Despite these challenges, the implementation journey has already proven energizing and valuable. With committed teams and strong collaboration, What’s Cooking is well on its way to building a more connected and future ready planning environment.

About Solventure

Solventure helps global manufacturing companies take control of their growth plans. In complex and margin sensitive environments, service issues, bad inventories and misaligned supply chain and financial plans can stall progress.

Solventure delivers the full transformation cycle of planning by connecting data, process and performance. This approach unlocks measurable improvements in margin, working capital and agility.

Read the full story

Want the complete case. Read the full What’s Cooking story here: https://www.solventuregroup.com/en/resources/creating-a-great-aps-dish-with-whats-cooking