Arkieva, an industry leading supply chain planning software and consulting provider, announces a supply chain planning project for Tata Consumer Products (TCPL), a fast-moving consumer goods company. TCPL chose Arkieva to optimize and manage its tea blending and associated raw materials procurement process. TCPL also needed a way to forecast the blends, prices and availability of its tea components. The Arkieva software solution leverages both optimization capabilities and forecasting models.

Headquartered in India, the TCPL portfolio of products includes tea, coffee, water, RTD, salt, pulses, spices, ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat offerings, breakfast cereals, snacks and mini meals. The company has Indian and international brands such as Tata Salt, Tata Tea, Tetley, Tata Sampann, Eight O'Clock Coffee, Good Earth Tea and Organic India. Tata Tea is the second largest tea brand in India while Tetley is the largest tea brand in Canada and the third-largest tea brand in the United Kingdom. Tea is packed for the Tata and Tetley brands by teams based in India and the United Kingdom.

As part of the tea procurement and blending process, TCPL knew they needed a planning tool to optimize their tea buying. The process requires ensuring all the blends utilize raw materials in the appropriate ratios on a weekly basis to deliver the right characteristics in the final product while minimizing the overall costs.

"During the selection process, we saw an exceptional fit between our functional requirements, the user-friendliness of the Arkieva supply planning software and the pragmatic approach of the Arkieva team," said Swaminathan T V, global chief digital officer at Tata Consumer Products. "Within a very short period of data being made available to them, Arkieva conducted a personalized demo utilizing our data which really helped us understand how the solution could directly impact our supply chain."

"We're looking forward to our go-live with Arkieva in the coming weeks. The Arkieva supply planning software will allow TCPL to balance supply and demand better, allowing us to provide better service to our customers," said Swaminathan.

"We are very excited to have an industry leader like Tata Consumer Products place their confidence in the Arkieva solution," said Sujit Singh, chief operating officer at Arkieva. "Tata is one of the most well-known and respected companies in the world. We've enjoyed working with their team and look forward to the blend optimization process go-live. We believe in our software and know it will greatly benefit Tata Consumer Products' process and enable it to become even more efficient."