Coupa LLamasoft Alternatives for Supply Chain Design

Supply chain executives usually look for a new supply chain design solution because they’re tired of these pain points:

• Tied to a desktop computer: When your supply chain processes are confined to document sharing and traditional servers or computers, you limit your organization's flexibility and agility: both critical factors in an optimized supply chain design.
• Sensitivity analysis is cumbersome and slow: You need to know how your proposed supply chain designs will respond to changes in demand, costs, and more. Historically, this sensitivity analysis is cumbersome and slow. And when you finally gather the required data, the variables you evaluated have already changed.
• Inability to measure risk: Supply chains are broken and failing. Over the last few decades, supply chains were designed to be fragile and break because they prioritized cost while ignoring risk and sustainability.
• Solution pricing is complicated, and you can’t test the software before buying: Traditional supply chain design software can be cost prohibitive and difficult to test how it works. This is frustrating for users who just want a look at the solution and to try it out for themselves without going through the sales process. Users are frustrated by overly complex pricing models that confuse buyers and act as a barrier to usage, especially for small to midsize organizations.

If you’re searching for alternatives to Coupa LLamasoft for supply chain design, review our list below to learn how the right supply chain design tool can optimize your network design and help you achieve your KPIs. Are you looking for supply chain design that considers all aspects of a profitable, sustainable network design? Create your free trial Cosmic Frog account today to get started with the fastest, most powerful supply chain design software on the market.

Optilogic Cosmic Frog

Cosmic Frog is the better way to design your supply chain. The Optilogic solution is 100% SaaS-based for easy access and collaboration and uses hyperscaling technology to allow hundreds of models and scenarios to run in parallel, including automated sensitivity analysis at the click of a button. Let’s take a closer look at the particulars that differentiate Cosmic Frog from the rest.

Key Feature 1 - Cosmic Frog is Accessible from Anywhere

Other solutions are slow and constrain access:

• Inability to balance tradeoffs and test future-state scenarios using spreadsheets and old-school optimization.
• Using internal operations research team to build supply chain models is a slow process and not “self-service.”
• Using traditional “half-SaaS” supply chain design solutions involves slow processing times, difficulty sharing models and collaborating, and support is haphazard

Cosmic Frog saves 40% in runtime compared to other systems. Not only do Cosmic Frog network optimization models run faster, but they also provide more output data. All Cosmic Frog network optimization runs include risk ratings and cost-to-serve and still outperform competitor solutions in model run times.

Optilogic algorithms are superior because they are tuned using the latest technology to solve supply chain problems better; they run faster and deliver richer outputs.

Use Sensitivity at Scale, simulation and sequential optimization to sense and validate future policies and pinpoint the best possible configuration of facility number and locations, warehouse design, inventory management, transportation mode, etc., according to your company’s KPIs.

For example, you use Cosmic Frog network optimization to:

• Understand and analyze the product movement through the supply chain—from sourcing to delivery of goods to customers—to look for opportunities to reduce cost and risk and improve service
• Weigh the trade-offs of nearshoring strategies
• Decide how to best to merge multiple supply chain facilities and policies for M&A activities
• Identify the best transportation routes and modes to minimize cost and maximize service

To answer questions like these, simply:Step 1: Create a new model or select a template Step 2: Upload your data Step 3: Build and run scenarios Step 4: Analyze and share scenarios with vivid maps and analytics

Key Feature 2 - Cosmic Frog Risk Engine Considers Risk and Includes a Risk Rating for Every Scenario

Companies using traditional solutions end up designing supply chains that deliver adequate service at the lowest cost—but ignore risk. Cosmic Frog is the only supply chain design solution that allows you to calculate trade-offs across cost, service, and risk by providing an automatic risk rating for every scenario. Cosmic Frog’s Risk engine is integrated to external data sources for natural disaster, political and economic stability, nuclear and biolab proximity, and more.

The risk engine also identifies areas of high demand concentration, single-sourced products, and other factors that introduce potential risks. All this rolls up into an Opti-Risk score, providing a clear comparison of risk associated with all scenarios.

Key Feature 3 - Cosmic Frog Simplifies and Speeds Up Sensitivity Analysis

With competitor solutions, scenario analysis is slow and rarely accomplished due to the limitations of desktop solves and complex, difficult to use applications. This means companies lack a crucially important capability to identify the best future supply chain designs and avoid the regret of poor strategic supply chain decisions. Sensitivity at Scale is a breakthrough in supply chain analytics: Sensitivity analysis used to be cumbersome and slow. Now Cosmic Frog users can automatically create and run hundreds or thousands of sensitivity scenarios at the click of a button.

View the entire solution landscape to pinpoint the exact tipping point of when and how to adjust your supply chain design strategy. This leads to more accurate and efficient design strategies that were previously unattainable.

This is made possible with the power of cloud hyperscaling in 100% SaaS-based Cosmic Frog. For example, to use Sensitivity at Scale to analyze a near-shoring strategy, begin by using Cosmic Frog to model different scenarios moving supply out of China into Latam and Europe. Then simply click ‘Sensitivity at Scale’ button at the top of your screen. Cosmic Frog will automatically run sensitivities to determine the effect on each scenario if transportation or demand fluctuates.

Key Feature 4 - Free Trial Option

Traditional supply chain design solution vendors make companies jump through hoops and go through a rigorous sales process before they can see a demo. This approach prohibits user testing and dramatically slows down the time to value for companies that need better supply chain design. Maybe it’s just us, but we think you ought to be able to test out the software before you make a purchasing decision. Anyone can create a free trial account of Cosmic Frog that has the same features as the Professional account. Signing up for a free account takes less than five minutes and gives you instant access to hundreds of templates and resources to get you started modeling right away. Compare Cosmic Frog plans at www.optilogic.com/compare-plans.

Coupa / LLamasoft

Coupa acquired LLamasoft in 2020 and began marketing the supply chain design solution LLamasoft Supply Chain Modeler. The Coupa offering is a combined desktop and cloud-based solution focused on network optimization, inventory optimization, and simulation. Following Coupa’s acquisition by Thoma Bravo, supply chain design support and development has diminished, as has Coupa’s in-house supply chain design expertise. Coupa also lacks a full cloud-based solution and risk engine. Features and Capabilities:

• Desktop supply chain design tool supporting network optimization, inventory optimization, and simulation
• Partial cloud-based modeling solution which often requires hybrid desktop/cloud approach for more complex modeling
• Desktop-based ETL tool
• Cloud-based demand modeling tool and app builder for custom solutions

AIMMS Supply Chain Navigator

AIMMS, headquartered in The Netherlands, offers the SC Navigator network optimization solution. SC Navigator uses a mathematical optimization back end with a scenario analysis-based front end to create supply chain design models. The company also offers products for inventory planning, demand forecasting, and S&OP. AIMMS has a simple user interface and intuitive, clean mapping features, but lacks simulation and risk analysis capabilities. Features and Capabilities:

• Cloud-based
• What-if scenario modeling
• CPLEX based solving along with options to use other solvers
• Scenario based inventory planning app to help with analysis of inventory (stock levels, safety stock, etc.)
• S&OP and demand forecasting

GAINS

GAINS acquired the 3 Tenets Optimization (3TO) solution in 2023, a network optimization solution. With the addition of 3TO, GAINS can offer basic network design capabilities but may lack strong in-house design expertise and feature depth.

Logility

Logility acquired the Starboard supply chain network optimization solution in 2022. Logility’s solution offers basic network design capabilities to answer questions around network optimization, distribution strategy, facility location, and nearshoring/supplier strategy. The Logility solution has a simple user interface and is easy to use; however, it may lack feature depth and development priority in a primarily supply chain planning-focused company.

Build Better Supply Chains with Cosmic Frog

Choosing the right supply chain design software empowers you to create balanced, risk-resilient supply chains that can withstand whatever comes your way. Create your free trial Cosmic Frog account today and explore the better way to design your supply chain.