LevaData release notes version 21.04 Follow

Release Notes
Cognitive Sourcing Release 21.04
Apr 26, 2021

 

This document describes the final scope for Cognitive Sourcing Release 21.04. It is intended as a reference for LevaData Customers.

This document is not a comprehensive list of every addition, change, or deletion in this release. No legal commitment, either expressed or implied should be construed from this document.

Customers that would like additional information on any of the items in this document can contact support@levadatasupport.zendesk.com or their Customer Success Manager.

 

Table of Contents

Release Highlights 
Enhancements to Cost Optimizer 

Spend and Savings Analytics with enhanced Product and Commodity Demands 
CPN Savings at Site Level and Global Level 
Support Savings against Standard Cost in addition to Savings against Baseline
Costs 

Enhancements to New Product Accelerator 

Parts Workbench 1.0 Beta 
Usability Enhancement - Alternative Parts Visibility 

Enhancements to Supply Risk Navigator 

Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation - Events Beta 
Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation - Manufacturer and Portfolio Risks 
Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation - Data Health 
Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation - Partner Scorecard updates 

Enhancements to Platform / Smart RFX

Make Customer controlled parts’ visibility in Product RFX configurable 
Creating an adhoc CPN in RFQ

Known Issues

Large Excel export may truncate data

 

Release Highlights

1. Enhancements to Cost Optimizer

A. Spend and Savings Analytics with enhanced Product and Commodity Demands

This enhancement applies only to customers that use Product Scope. There is no change for customers that currently use only Commodity Scope on the platform.

Previously, if data was provided for both product and commodity demand as part of data loads, then the commodity demand data would be ignored and replaced with commodity demands as calculated from applying usage factors to product demands. This forced the assumption that if product demands are provided then all commodity demand came from projecting product demands. With this release, we have removed this limitation. Now, the platform can allow demands on commodities that are independent of any product (such as for spare parts, or when not all product demands have been provided to LevaData in the data loads). If there is a discrepancy between the commodity demands projected from the stated product demands and the stated commodity demands, the platform automatically reconciles by treating excess commodity demands as independent demand.

Here is the summary of key changes for Cost Optimizer when used in Product Scope.

1. The Spend Intelligence page now has three major tabs: Product, BOM, and
Transformation.

a. The Product tab shows the total product costs bringing together BOM Costs and
Transformation Costs as shown below in the Cost sub-tab

b. The BOM tab shows BOM cost details. Here, we show spend and savings on the
portion of the commodity demand that is projected from the product demand.
Note that this tab has the same product + commodity views that used to be shown
in Spend Intelligence in Commodity Scope in previous versions. You can view
these data along both product and commodity dimensions just as before.

NOTE: The spend numbers in BOM tab may be different from Product tab since Product tab includes transformation spend as well.

c. The Transformation tab is managed by user permissions. For the users who have
been given access by their administrator, the Transformation tab shows the details
of transformation and value-added costs associated with each product. The
Transformation tab now has a new option to view the various charts and tables by
Transformation type in the “View by” dropdown.

d. With this release we are making an explicit distinction between product demand in
terms of “in-factory” or “starts” demand needed to build the stated volumes of the
product as opposed to the “ex-factory” or “outs” demand of the product volumes
that need to be completed or shipped in each period. By default, all product and
commodity demands are assumed to be in-factory demands as has been implicitly
the case in previous versions. The spend and savings analytics are based on the
in-factory demands only.

Here is the summary of key changes for Cost Optimizer when used in Commodity
Scope.

1. In Commodity Scope, we are now distinguishing between the “dependent
demands” that are commodity demands projected from product demands and any
additional “independent demands” that are not projected from any products. The
total demand is the sum of dependent demand and independent demand.

2. Given the presence of independent demand, the Commodity Scope charts and tables can no longer be viewed by Product and Product Family and these choices have been removed from the “View By” drop down menu. This change impacts only customers that were providing product scope data. Note that this same capability is now available in the BOM tab within the Product Scope as mentioned earlier.

3. The platform is now also able to distinguish between gross demand and netted demand after accounting for on-hand inventory.

 

B. CPN Savings at Site Level and Global Level

The spend and savings analytics now provide CPN Savings by CM/ODM as well as at
a global level across sites.

Commodity Scope Site & Global Level - changes located in the Spend & Savings tab
When Site specific costs are different, the Global level costs and savings are calculated by taking an average weighted by relative spend across sites.

Product Scope Site & Global Level - changes located in the BOM tab,
When Site specific costs are different, the Global level costs and savings are calculated by
taking an average weighted by relative spend across sites.

C. Support Savings against Standard Cost in addition to Savings against Baseline Costs
(Managed in Administration/Tenant configuration)

Typically, procurement teams measure savings against some rules that identify a reference quarter designated as baseline while finance teams measure savings against standard costs that are set periodically (usually once a year).

In the past, the platform would use standard cost for a product only if one was provided and use the baseline otherwise. With this release, we are enabling support to view savings against either Baseline or Standard Costs when Standard Costs are provided. If Standard Costs are not provided, then there is no change. With this release, Baselines are still configurable to the costs from a previous quarter using rules as before. When Standard Costs are provided, the platform allows the user to view Savings either by Standard Costs or by Baseline.

When enabled in the configuration of the tenant, the commodity scope view will have a “view by” drop down as shown below on the “Spend & Savings” tab. In Product scope, the “view by” drop down will be visible in the BOM tab as shown below. Note that this choice will only be visible to those customers that provide Standard Costs data in their data loads.

NOTE: In Product Scope, you will see this Standard Cost vs Baseline choice dropdown only in the BOM sub-tab since these calculations apply only to the CPN level.

 

2. Enhancements to New Product Accelerator

A. Parts Workbench 1.0 Beta

Parts Workbench is a single source of truth for the GCM and other user persona to monitor and take actions on parts across the entire parts portfolio from 3 different perspectives:

- Data Health
- Opportunities
- Risk perspectives

If you would like to participate in the Leva Early Adopter Program (L.E.A.P) and provide
feedback, please get in touch with your Customer Success Director.

Visibility
Users get a 360o view of NPI and Sustenance parts in a single screen and can track
prioritized metrics such as Portfolio Cost, Target vs Current cost, etc. via a scoreboard
which allows them to select high-priority KPIs.

Users can pre-configure the KPIs that are most important to them and track data based
on those metrics:

Users can get to the necessary parts information through configurable quick filters,
allowing them to take quick actions/decisions:

Data Health
Users can easily address data health issues such as missing MPNs, suppliers,
manufacturers through the Data Health card. Clicking on the specific parameter filters
the grid below for quicker access.

Opportunities & Risks

Today, users must switch between different screens to view the Cost savings/reduction
opportunities or risk mitigation metrics across NPI and Sustenance parts. In the Parts
Workbench, users get a consolidated view of opportunities and risks across both spheres for better decision making.

B. Usability Enhancement - Alternative Parts Visibility

Currently, to view the Alternative Parts (both in BOM Management screen as well as BOM Repository screen), users need to download a BOM into an excel sheet.

With this release, users would be able to view Alternative Parts on the UI in addition
to the downloaded excel sheet.

BOM Management

BOM Repository:

3. Enhancements to Supply Risk Navigator

Supply Risk Navigator is a LevaData Early Adopter Product. Please contact your Customer Success Director if you would like to discuss participation in the program.

A. Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation - Events Beta

Supply Risk Assessment & Mitigation is restructured for simplified access to
manufacturing (site), Covid, Environmental, Infrastructure events and their statuses.
Event summaries are directly accessible, including links to related details, supplier and
supplier site impacts, and related news:

B. Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation - Manufacturer and Portfolio Risks

Simplified views of customer manufacturer and portfolio risk are now accessible through the Supply Risk Assessment & Mitigation Tab. This tab includes three sub tabs that offer summary views of Manufacturer Risk, Portfolio Risk, and Market Trends with Watch Points:

 

The Manufacturer Risk Tab summarizes manufacturer risk prioritized by risk and spend
level via the drill-down-capable Krajlic Matrix), and further adds details about selected
manufacturers, and their impact on the customer portfolio (# of product families to which the manufacturer contributes, # CPNs provided by the manufacturer and those at high risk, and the number of single source CPNs provided by the manufacturer. A column for Product Family Revenue Impact is also added and is populated when customers provide product pricing information. Scrolling down in this tab, additional details about the manufacturer spend by product family, details of the manufacturer risk factors (Financial, Delivery, Quality and Preferred Status), followed by details about the risk associated with the MPNs provided by the Manufacturer, and the Manufacturer’s geographic site and spend distribution.

 

The Portfolio Risk Tab offers a drill down visual representation of customer portfolio risk
from the view of high-risk sub commodities and products, including counts of sub
commodities/product families by risk level, spend by commodity and product family and details. Similar to the Manufacturer Risk tab, all tables offer drill downs to enable focus on risk factors for a specific product family or commodity, and their associated CPNs, MPNs and their geographic distribution.

C. Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation - Data Health

Risk data coverage at the manufacturer, CPN and MPN levels are now directly
accessible through the Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation Menu item:

D. Supply Risk Assessment and Mitigation - Partner Scorecard updates

The Partner Scorecard is accessed via a right-click on the manufacturer name from any
of the Manufacturer or Portfolio Risk tables described in the sections above. The
scorecard now displays Private Company financial data if it is provided by the customer.

Additionally, customer-provided (Supplier) Performance Ratings now account for non-integer supplier ratings and include the ratings date.

4. Enhancements to Platform / Smart RFX

A. Make Customer controlled parts’ visibility in Product RFX configurable

Today in Product RFX, the Customer controlled parts are visible to the Manufacturing Partner (CM/ODM/JDM) along with the “CMODM” controlled parts. But the CM/ODM would only be able to quote on parts they control.

With this release, users can now configure whether the CMODM can view/quote customer controlled parts before sending the Product RFQ.

Use Case:2 - The GCM selects the following option 'CMODM to view customer-controlled parts' then the CMODM can only view the parts which are being controlled by the customer.

Use Case :3 - The GCM selects the following option 'CMODM to update customer-controlled parts'
then the CMODM can view and update the parts which are being controlled by the customer.

B. Creating an adhoc CPN in RFQ

Users can now add adhoc CPNs (CPNs which are not loaded into the LevaData system),
to RFQs to suppliers/CMODMs. They can also map the CPNs to different Suppliers,
Manufacturers and/or CMODMs in new or existing RFQs as part of their negotiation
process.

5. Known Issues

A. Large Excel export may truncate data

When downloading data from the platform, please do not use Excel format and use CSV format instead. We have a known issue in Amazon QuickSight where Excel downloads truncate data when certain limits are exceeded. Excel exports could be missing data.

According to Amazon, the maximum number of rows you can export to Excel from a
Pivot Table is 20,000, but if you have many columns (and therefore create many more
cells per row) then the limit shrinks. For several cases in the platform, because our
report has so many columns, the number of rows can get limited down to 2,000. The
behaviour is the same with Table visuals. Here the maximum limit to the number of
rows is 100,000. Again, the more columns you have, the lower this limit will be.

Amazon has also stated that the data that is used to populate Pivot Tables (and
therefore the Excel exports) is fetched from the backend. If you see that a Pivot Table
has not fully loaded, this means the data is still being retrieved from the backend. To
make sure your Excel report contains all the data, it is necessary to wait for the data load
to finish and only then initiate the export.