• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • SCB YouTube
  • About Us
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Parcel & Express
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Robotics
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Customer Relationship Management
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • Green Energy
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Supply Chains in Crisis
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Management & Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Warehouse Automation
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • THINK TANK
  • WEBINARS
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Library
  • PODCASTS
  • WHITEPAPERS
  • VIDEOS
Home » Putting the Pieces Together: Blue Diamond Embraces the SAP Ecosystem
2024 GREAT PARTNERS CASE STUDY

Putting the Pieces Together: Blue Diamond Embraces the SAP Ecosystem

ALMONDS LIE SCATTERED ON A DEEP BLUE BACKGROUND

Photo: iStock.com/Arnav Ray

August 5, 2024
SupplyChainBrain

How does a company acquire all of the software it needs to run a digitized global supply chain with end-to-end control? One piece at a time. 

Blue Diamond Growers is a marketing organization and cooperative of almond producers based in California’s Central Valley. It operates two main business lines: the sale of branded snack nuts, almond milk and global ingredients, and the supplying of almonds to other consumer packaged goods companies. 

When Blue Diamond chief information officer Steve Birgfeld joined the company in 2016, it was already two years into the acquisition of software from SAP. But that was just the beginning of an engagement with the vendor that would extend to the purchase of multiple applications as part of Blue Diamond’s “digital supply chain journey.” 

Integrated business planning from SAP was put into place shortly after Birgfeld’s arrival. Prior to adoption of that suite, Blue Diamond had engaged in a manual effort that required up to six hours a day to develop multiple “what-if” demand scenarios, Birgfeld says. Now, the exercise takes between 10 and 12 minutes, allowing the company to quickly shift product from one customer to another in the event of a sudden supply or delivery constraint. 

Blue Diamond still engages in monthly demand planning, but with the coming of COVID-19 and its accompanying supply chain disruptions, it also needed to shift to weekly and in some cases daily cadences, Birgfeld says. 

“COVID taught us that real-time planning was not a luxury item — it’s a necessity,” says David Vallejo, SAP’s global head of digital supply chain. “You need to pivot on your heels.” 

Shortly after implementation of integrated business planning, Blue Diamond added supplier collaboration software from SAP unit Ariba. The application helped to streamline and automate invoice management and vendor onboarding, Birgfeld says. 

Then, in 2021, Blue Diamond migrated to SAP S4/HANA, the latest iteration of the vendor’s clouded-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite, as well as SAP Transportation Management. The former serves as Blue Diamond’s data warehouse. With the latter, the company chose to focus initially on ocean freight, relying as well on independent software vendor project44 for enabling shipment visibility. That gave Blue Diamond the ability to inform customers of any delays in the arrival of product. 

In 2023, Blue Diamond turned its attention to the management of domestic freight, prices for which were fluctuating widely and making it difficult for the shipper to get product to market on time in a cost-effective manner. 

The ultimate goal, Vallejo says, lay in enabling Blue Diamond to bring together financial planning with the logistics function — two sides of the house that don’t typically share key information and planning scenarios in real time on a regular basis. 

Implementation of the various modules wasn’t without its challenges. Connecting Ariba to SAP’s ERP Control Component (ECC) took time. And it was nearly five months before Blue Diamond’s planners came to completely trust the data that was coming through project44 and the SAP logistics business network. “I personally thought they would embrace it faster, because it added so much capability for them — it made their lives easier,” Birgfeld says. “They got a little scared.” 

Read SupplyChainBrain’s latest 100 Great Supply Chain Partners issue now! 

View the Digital Flip Book here.

Results to date have been impressive. Birgfeld says Blue Diamond has seen more than $1 million in savings on transportation costs with activation of the SAP modules. With improved visibility, insights and ability to plan on the fly, “our OTIF [on time, in full] saw upticks.” No longer does the company have to field multiple customer calls enquiring about the status of their shipments. “Now it’s all self-contained in the portal. Our customer service reps have direct access, instead of going through our logistics team.” 

Birgfeld says Blue Diamond intends to further extend its reliance on the SAP ecosystem, to include manufacturing modules such as plant maintenance and production planning and scheduling, as well as take further advantage of the vendor’s AI capabilities. 

“It’s another step in their roadmap,” Vallejo says. “They’re really taking us by our word.” 

Resource Links:

Blue Diamond, https://bluediamondgrowers.com/

SAP, https://www.sap.com/index.html

    RELATED CONTENT

    RELATED VIDEOS

    Technology Cloud & On-Demand Systems ERP & Enterprise Systems Forecasting & Demand Planning Supply Chain Planning & Optimization Supply Chain Visibility Transportation Management Business Strategy Alignment Global Supply Chain Management Food & Beverage Retail
    • Related Articles

      Watch: Putting the Pieces of Broken Supply Chains Back Together

      Blue Diamond Growers: Digitalizing the World’s Largest Almond Cooperative

      How to Put the Pieces Together

    • Related Directories

      Kuebix

      Tecsys, Inc.

    SupplyChainBrain

    Amazon Expands Drone Delivery Services into Arizona

    More from this author

    Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter!

    Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

    Popular Stories

    • A PARTIALLY OPEN AIRCRAFT MANUFACTURING HANGAR SPORTS HUGE IMAGES OF PLANES ON ITS SLIDING DOORS

      Boeing Dismantles DEI Team as Pressure Builds on New CEO

      Air Cargo
    • A CLOSE-UP OF VARIOUS PILLS ON A MAGENTA TABLE.

      U.S. More Susceptible to Drug Shortages Than Canada

      Global Supply Chain Management
    • A large blue container ship docked at a port, below three white shipping cranes, while a grey barge moves through the waterway in the foreground

      Montréal Employers Threaten to Suspend Striking Port Workers’ Salary Guarantee

      Global Gateways
    • A WOMAN OF COLOR IN BLUE OVERALLS HOLDS A WELDING TORCH IN A FACTORY SETTING

      A Call for Reinvigorating the U.S. as the World’s ‘Manufacturing Superpower’

      Regulation & Compliance
    • An above view of crates of red apples stacked on top of each other, next to a man in a plaid shirt and a white hard hat looking at a tablet.

      The Fight Against Food Fraud in Our 'Biggest, Weirdest Supply Chains'

      Global Supply Chain Management

    Digital Edition

    Cover nov 24 scb q4 2024

    Supply Chain Innovation 2024: A Formula for Thriving in the Age of Disruption

    VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

    Case Studies

    • Recycled Tagging Fasteners: Small Changes Make a Big Impact

    • A GRAPHIC SHOWING MULTIPLE FORMS OF SHIPPING, WITH A HUMAN STANDING AT THE CENTER, TOUCHING A SYMBOLIC MAP OF THE WORLD

      Enhancing High-Value Electronics Shipment Security with Tive's Real-Time Tracking

    • A GRAPHIC OF INTERLACING HONEYCOMBED ELEMENTS REPRESENTING GLOBAL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS

      Moving Robots Site-to-Site

    • JLL Finds Perfect Warehouse Location, Leading to $15M Grant for Startup

    • Robots Speed Fulfillment to Help Apparel Company Scale for Growth

    Visit Our Sponsors

    AutoStore Beumer Group Brightdrop
    CHEP Cleo Coenterprise
    Comarch Commport Cycle Labs
    Dassault Descartes Enveyo
    Eva Air Exiger ForwardX Robotics
    Frayt Generix Georgetown University
    GEP Holman Logistics iGPS
    Integrity Staffing JLL Kinaxis
    Korber LoadSmart Lucas Systems
    Manhattan Associates Netstock OWD
    Old Dominion Ortec PartnerLinQ (Visionet)
    Plante Moran Quickbase RapidRatings
    Rockwell Automation SAP S&P Global Mobility
    TADA Tecsys Zebra Technologies
    • More From SCB
      • Featured Content
      • Video Library
      • Think Tank Blog
      • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
      • Whitepapers
      • On-Demand Webinars
      • Upcoming Webinars
    • Digital Offerings
      • Digital Issue
      • Subscribe
      • Manage Your Subscription
      • Newsletters
    • Resources
      • Events Calendar
      • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
      • Supplier Directory
      • Case Study Showcase
      • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
      • 100 Great Partners Form
    • SCB Corporate
      • Advertise on SCB.COM
      • About Us
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact Us
      • Data Sharing Opt-Out

    All content copyright ©2024 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

    Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing