Conagra

Conagra’s prior planning processes required significant manual intervention, creating an opportunity to strengthen consistency, increase confidence in system outputs, and improve planning efficiency.

Conagra decided to initiate a structured reset of its planning foundations, and reimagine its supply chain as a modern, automated, high-trust ecosystem built on Blue Yonder solutions. Its teams recalibrated its core planning parameters to focus on lead times, safety stock policies, lot sizes, and production constraints.

With Blue Yonder, this effort brought confidence to Conagra’s teams in trusting its new solutions’ recommendations. Planners began to rely on planning output rather than override them, while focusing on decision-making, reducing variability and improving alignment between planning and execution.

Maximizing planning value through targeted expertise

For Conagra, building trust also meant taking a closer look at how its existing Blue Yonder supply planning models were being used and where additional value could be unlocked. In partnership with Blue Yonder’s Professional Services team, the two organizations collaborated through a workshop to assess solution performance and identify opportunities for improvement. The Blue Yonder team worked with Conagra over several weeks to diagnose challenges in its supply planning environment, document findings, and provide practical recommendations to improve model performance and strengthen the value delivered by its existing Blue Yonder solutions.

The engagement helped Conagra move from diagnosis to action. As Conagra began implementing the recommendations, engagement with Blue Yonder increased, and the company expressed interest in evaluating additional functionality to further expand its Blue Yonder solution footprint.

Transitioning to touchless planning at scale

Conagra’s redesign of its approach to supply chain focused on reducing manual touchpoints. Planning workflows were rebuilt to prioritize automation, with clear rules for when manual intervention was necessary. The results have been significant, with 70% of Blue Yonder Inventory Optimization decisions executed without manual input, and 95% of production planning processes operated without intervention.

This shift enables Conagra’s planners to focus on higher-value activities such as scenario evaluation and strategic decision-making, with roles evolving to balance operational excellence, growth enablement, and AI-enabled planning.

Increasing agility through time fence reduction

With Blue Yonder, Conagra has significantly reduced the planning time fence by 70%, with coordination across planning, manufacturing, and data management teams. Shortening the time fence has provided Conagra with newfound advantages, including faster response to demand changes, improved alignment between production and actual demand, and increased utilization of Conagra’s manufacturing assets. The company has also improved its operational agility, allowing the organization to adapt more quickly to market conditions while maintaining stability. 

Improving service while reducing inventory

Blue Yonder Inventory Optimization capabilities have improved the accuracy of replenishment decisions and reduced excess safety stock for Conagra, while production planning improvements have ensured better alignment between supply and demand. The results demonstrate measurable improvement: 98% service levels attained and double-digit inventory value reduction versus FY23, based on FY26 Q3 year-to-date performance. These outcomes have reflected a more efficient deployment of inventory across Conagra’s supply chain. Products are available where needed without overstocking, and improved service performance has strengthened customer relationships by reducing stockouts and increasing delivery reliability. 

Building a foundation for future capabilities

Conagra’s transformation with Blue Yonder has established a foundation for continued advancement. With improvements in data quality, parameter governance, and process discipline, a stable environment for future capabilities has been created. This includes evaluating future Blue Yonder capabilities, including sequencing and AI-enabled scenario planning, to further enhance decision intelligence.

Conagra is positioned to extend its planning capabilities across its supply chain, with its focus remaining on increasing automation, improving decision intelligence, and strengthening integration across planning functions.