Industrial components manufacturing · 11 countries · 2 plants
Discovery conversationThursday 20 August 2026, 15:00 IST· 45 minutes
Research
10 sources · 7 signals · 14 August 2026
The compressed read: what the research concluded, what it rests on, and where it disagrees with itself. The full record is one click away.
What the research concluded
They grew the footprint faster than the operating model, and are rebuilding the ERP underneath it at the same time. Regional planning runs on workbooks the systems cannot see.
Two Indian plants feed eleven markets. Regional teams submit demand plans in Excel; a central S&OP process reconciles them monthly. Warehouse execution is modern; the planning layer above it is not.
The five readings the brief rests on
They are mid-migration from ECC to S/4HANA across all eleven entities, and master-data harmonisation is written into the scope. Anything that touches transactional data has to sit around that programme, not across it.
Manhattan Active WMS is live across both Indian plants. Warehouse execution is not the weak layer here, and treating it as one would read as not having done the reading.
Regional demand plans are submitted as Excel files and reconciled by hand against the central S&OP plan. On the evidence available, the workbook — not the ERP — is the system of record for regional planning.
The CFO said on the record that the cycle has lengthened with each added region and that inventory is carrying the cost. The problem is already acknowledged internally, and already framed in money.
Three regions were stood up in a single year and one of them replaced a distributor, which means demand planning that used to sit outside the company now sits inside it. Regional operations were established faster than a shared way of running them normally would be.
Where the sources disagree
Both can be true. Execution was modernised; the planning layer above it was not. Going in with the case-study picture would get the room wrong.
Manhattan Associates
A vendor case study (2024) presents Acme as having standardised and modernised execution.
Acme Industrial Systems — Careers
Job postings from 2026 still describe regional demand plans arriving in Excel and reconciled by hand.
The framing is theirs to defend. Ask what the new roles actually spend their week on before treating either reading as settled.
Acme Industrial Systems — Investor Relations
The annual report frames an 18% rise in employee cost as investment in supply chain and IT.
Acme Industrial Systems — Careers
Two of the advertised roles exist to consolidate plans and produce a variance pack by hand.
They have conceded the problem and not quantified it. That is the single largest opening in this brief.
Acme Industrial Systems
The CFO states the planning cycle has lengthened and inventory is carrying the cost.
Acme Industrial Systems — Investor Relations
No figure anywhere in the public record attributes inventory to the planning cycle.
What the research could not establish
Each of these is a question for the room rather than a gap to fill with a guess.
Prepared for Technical Consultant meeting CTO. 0 questions on the agenda.