A Diversified Agribusiness Leader Transforms Dry Goods Planning with Elfonze’s Tailored Supply Chain Solution

Madhu Samineni

Chief Delivery Officer & Head - Enterprise Planning and Manufacturing

5 mins

Published : September 17, 2025

About the Client

A $5B privately held U.S. company in the Agriculture, Food & Beverages, and Consumer Packaged Goods sector. With fully integrated operations, from farm to shelf, they manage a diverse portfolio including fruits, nuts, flowers, water, wines, and juices. The company is the world’s largest grower of tree nuts, the top citrus producer in the U.S., and the global leader in flower delivery.

The Challenges

The client faced significant complexity in its citrus operations, where seasonality, fragmented forecasting, and inefficient scheduling created bottlenecks and cost overruns.

Fragmented Forecasting – Sales forecasts by customer, group, and pack code lacked alignment and consistency, leading to inaccurate demand signals.
Manual Dry Goods Planning – Reliance on user-defined percentages for disaggregation caused errors in material demand and poor supply visibility.
Inefficient Inventory Management – Dry goods were spread across multiple locations with no consolidated view, delaying sourcing decisions and increasing carrying costs.
Product Lifecycle Gaps – New product introductions (NPIs) and phase-outs were tracked manually, often missing critical updates.
Production Scheduling Inefficiencies – Pack line capacities and sequences weren’t optimized, causing underutilization, delays, and frequent changeovers.
Legacy Tools – Manual spreadsheets couldn’t handle the scale or speed required for citrus operations, resulting in higher costs, slower responses, and reduced agility.

The client needed an automated, scalable planning solution that could improve forecast accuracy, consolidate inventory, and optimize production scheduling for seasonal citrus demand.

The Solution

We implemented a tailored solution on Oracle Cloud Supply Chain Planning with custom enhancements for citrus operations.

Key actions included:

Shipment-Driven Demand Planning
- Standardized and integrated sales forecasts across customer, group, pack code, and label.
- Applied shipment-based planning models to better align with real demand patterns.
Automated Dry Goods Demand Generation
- Built a process tied to fruit variety forecasts to generate dry goods requirements automatically.
- Reduced dependence on manual percentages and minimized cascading errors.
Inventory Consolidation Across Locations
- Designed sourcing logic to consolidate stock from multiple warehouses.
- Enabled optimized supplier POs with reduced lead times and balanced stock distribution.
Automated NPIs & Phase-Outs
- Configured workflows to track product lifecycle changes in real time.
- Improved forecast accuracy during transitions while eliminating manual delays.
Production Scheduling Optimization
- Developed scheduling logic that aligned pack line capacity, sequence rules, and efficiency parameters.
- Reduced downtime, changeovers, and underutilization of pack lines.
Agile Deployment Approach
- Sprint-based rollout with continuous solution reviews.
- Flexible configurations allowed quick adaptation to seasonal business shifts.

Interested in similar stories? Read how we implemented parallel processing in manufacturing operations to unlock faster production cycles and higher efficiency.

Business Impact

The solution delivered measurable operational and financial impact:

25%

Improvement in forecast accuracy, lowering excess stock and reducing stockouts in peak citrus season

30%

Faster procurement cycles through consolidated inventory sourcing

15%

Reduction in carrying costs by eliminating redundant stock across warehouses

40%

Faster NPIs and phase-outs, with zero manual errors during product lifecycle transitions

20%

Better pack line utilization due to optimized scheduling, minimizing downtime and changeovers

Faster scenario planning - Planners could now adjust schedules in hours instead of days, improving responsiveness to demand fluctuations

Madhu Samineni

Chief Delivery Officer & Head - Enterprise Planning and Manufacturing

As the key Solution Architect and Functional Lead, Madhu played a pivotal role in the successful implementation of demand and supply planning solutions. His core responsibilities included requirements gathering, solution design, model development, configuration, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure seamless execution and business alignment.