APS Without the Pain: From Daily Firefighting to Confident Planning

For many medium‑sized companies, supply chain planning has become a daily exercise in controlled chaos. Planners spend their days juggling spreadsheets, reacting to surprises, and trying to align teams that rarely share the same version of the truth. Volatility is rising, customer expectations are tightening, and disruptions seem to appear faster than teams can respond. Yet despite all this pressure, many organizations hesitate to adopt an Advanced Planning System (APS). The reason is almost always the same: they believe APS projects are long, expensive, and painful.

This belief made sense years ago. Traditional APS implementations often required months of scoping, heavy IT involvement, and complex integrations. For companies with limited resources, the idea of embarking on such a journey felt unrealistic. But the landscape has changed. Kinaxis has reimagined what an APS implementation can look like, and the combination of RapidStart and PlanningOne now offers a fast, safe, and accessible path to modern planning, without the burden of a massive transformation project.

At De Philmain, we’ve seen firsthand how this new approach can transform the daily reality of planners. This article explores why RapidStart and PlanningOne are such a breakthrough for medium‑sized companies, what you can expect from a deployment, and how we help organizations move from firefighting to confident, proactive planning.

The Daily Reality: Why Planners Feel Stuck

If you ask planners what their day looks like, the answer is almost always the same: firefighting. They spend hours reconciling data from multiple systems, updating spreadsheets, and trying to understand what changed since yesterday. When demand shifts or a supplier misses a delivery, the impact ripples across the organization, and planners must scramble to assess the consequences.

This reactive mode creates several challenges:

• Real-time visibility is limited
• Manual workarounds consume time and introduce errors
• Sales, operations, and supply chain often work from different assumptions
• Decisions are made under pressure, with incomplete information

The result is a planning process that feels fragile and exhausting. And yet, many companies continue operating this way because they believe the alternative (implementing an APS) is too complex for their size or maturity.

The Myth That Holds Medium-Sized Companies Back

For years, APS projects had a reputation for being long, costly, and disruptive. This perception persists for several reasons:

• Heavy customization was often required
• Integrations were complex and time-consuming
• Projects could last 12 to 24 months
• Companies needed large internal teams to support the implementation

But one of the biggest barriers was the design phase. Traditional APS implementations typically begin with months of requirements gathering, workshops, and documentation. Every process must be described in exhaustive detail, leaving no room for discovery or iteration later in the project. These phases are often painful for planners and business teams: they require significant time, force organizations to define processes they sometimes haven’t fully formalized, and create a rigid blueprint that must be followed even if new insights emerge during implementation.

This “big design upfront” approach is one of the main reasons medium‑sized companies hesitate. It feels heavy, risky, and disconnected from the fast‑moving reality of their operations.

The New Reality: RapidStart + PlanningOne

Kinaxis has fundamentally redesigned this journey. With RapidStart, companies no longer begin with a blank page or a long, theoretical design phase. Instead, they start from predefined, implemented, and fully documented processes based on industry standards and best practices. These processes reflect decades of experience across multiple sectors and are already aligned with how modern supply chains operate.

This means:

• No painful requirements‑gathering marathons
• No endless workshops trying to define every exception
• No rigid documentation that locks the project before it even starts

Instead of spending months designing processes from scratch, teams can focus on adapting proven, field‑tested processes to their specific context. This dramatically reduces project fatigue, accelerates onboarding, and ensures that planners work with methods already validated by industry leaders.

PlanningOne then provides a unified, intuitive environment for all core planning activities, powered by Maestro, the Kinaxis planning engine used by global leaders.

And this is where an essential point must be highlighted: Kinaxis is widely recognized as the world’s leading vendor for supply chain planning software. For many consecutive years, it has been positioned as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Solutions, a recognition earned through innovation, customer satisfaction, and consistent delivery of real value. Choosing Kinaxis means adopting a world‑class APS trusted by global manufacturers, retailers, and life sciences companies. It also means benefiting from decades of cross‑industry experience, embedded directly into the platform’s best practices and planning models.

Together, RapidStart and PlanningOne offer:

• A faster path to value
• A simplified implementation journey
• A scalable foundation for future growth
• A modern planning experience accessible to all planners
• The confidence of relying on a globally recognized, industry‑leading APS

This is not a “light” or “reduced” version of an APS. It is a powerful, enterprise-grade planning environment delivered in a way that fits the needs and constraints of medium‑sized companies.

What You Can Achieve in Weeks, Not Years

One of the most compelling aspects of RapidStart is the speed at which companies can begin using the system. Instead of waiting months for configuration and integration work, teams can access core planning capabilities early in the project.

A typical timeline looks like this:

• First 30 days: data onboarding, environment setup, initial training
• Around 60 days: core planning processes running in PlanningOne
• Around 90 days: teams using the system for daily planning and decision-making

This accelerated approach is possible because RapidStart provides:

• Predefined templates for data and processes
• A standardized, proven data model
• Clear scope boundaries that reduce risk
• A structured, predictable deployment plan

For planners, this means they can quickly move away from spreadsheets and start benefiting from real-time visibility and scenario planning, without waiting for a long transformation project to finish.

Solving the Problems Planners Face Every Day

RapidStart and PlanningOne directly address the challenges that make planning so difficult for medium‑sized companies.

Eliminating spreadsheet chaos

Instead of juggling dozens of files, planners work in a single environment where data is always up to date.

Gaining real-time visibility

Demand, supply, and inventory are connected, allowing planners to see the full impact of any change instantly.

Anticipating disruptions

Scenario planning becomes a natural part of the process, helping teams evaluate risks before they become crises.

Aligning the organization

Sales, operations, and supply chain share the same data and the same version of the truth, reducing friction and improving decision quality.

These improvements don’t just make planning more efficient, they reduce stress, improve collaboration, and create a more resilient organization.

The Capabilities That Transform Your Planning

PlanningOne provides a rich set of capabilities that immediately elevate planning maturity:

• Demand/supply balancing
• Scenario planning and risk evaluation
• Inventory optimization
• Workflow and collaboration tools
• Real-time analytics for faster, better decisions

These capabilities empower planners to move from reactive firefighting to proactive, strategic planning. Instead of spending their days updating spreadsheets, they can focus on analyzing risks, improving performance, and supporting the business.

What Implementation Looks Like with De Philmain

Technology alone is not enough. The success of a RapidStart project depends on having a partner who understands your business, your constraints, and your planning maturity. This is where De Philmain makes a difference.

De Philmain has been a Kinaxis system integrator partner since 2020, supporting customers across Europe and beyond in their APS transformation. Our consultants are experienced, certified, and deeply familiar with the Kinaxis ecosystem, including Maestro, RapidStart, and PlanningOne. Over the years, we’ve worked with organizations from multiple industries and sectors, giving us the perspective needed to guide new customers through their own APS journey with confidence.

Our approach is:

Pragmatic and transparent

We focus on what matters, avoid unnecessary complexity, and communicate clearly at every step.

Human-centered

We understand the pressure planners face, and we design the project to support them, not overwhelm them.

Structured and predictable

We provide clear deliverables, timelines, and responsibilities so your team always knows what to expect.

Focused on empowerment

We invest heavily in documentation, training, and knowledge transfer to ensure your team becomes autonomous quickly.

Our goal is not just to implement a tool, it is to help your organization build a stronger, more resilient planning process.

Results You Can Expect

Companies that adopt RapidStart and PlanningOne typically see:

• Fewer surprises thanks to real-time visibility
• Better service levels without increasing inventory
• Faster, more confident decisions
• Reduced stress for planners and managers
• A scalable foundation for future expansion on the Kinaxis platform
• The reassurance of relying on a globally recognized leader in supply chain planning

These results are achievable even for organizations with limited resources. That’s the power of a modern APS delivered through a simplified, accelerated approach.

Your Next Step

If your planning team is overwhelmed, if spreadsheets are holding you back, or if you’ve been postponing APS adoption because it felt too complex, now is the time to reconsider. RapidStart and PlanningOne offer a practical, accessible way to modernize your planning without the pain of a traditional project, while giving you access to the same world‑class technology used by industry leaders.

At De Philmain, we help medium‑sized companies evaluate whether RapidStart is the right fit, understand what the journey would look like, and build a roadmap tailored to their needs. If you’d like to explore what’s possible, we’d be happy to discuss your challenges and share how we can support your transformation.