Capacity planning is the process of determining the production capacity needed by an organization to meet changing demands for its products. Most people think of IBM Cognos TM1 and automatically think just of financial planning. They think of how organizations of all types and kinds use TM1 for budgeting, planning, reporting and various other office of finance activities. But as we have learned in our decades of experience in working with TM1, there are many other ways companies can use TM1.
Just one of these ways is capacity planning. In short, by using TM1 for capacity planning, a business can better understand how to maximize the capacity it has on hand, how to plan for expected increases and decreases in supply and demand, and how to capitalize on market opportunities to increase physical capacity at the most optimal times.
One of our clients who needed a capacity planning solution is in the oil & gas industry. We built a solution for them that uses TM1 for operational performance management data on their storage of oil and gas. The company has contracts with its customers to store petroleum products to be transported. By having greater visibility into its tank utilization, the company can both be more efficient, and be more proactive by driving more revenue when there is spare capacity available.