Clorox Enhances Supply Chain Operations through a New ERP System

Recommendation: Implement a unified planning platform to reduce order cycle times and requisition-to-order lead times by 20% within six months, consolidating workflows into a single data-driven database.

In cloroxs network, the connected modules provide real-time visibility into available inventory and demand signals. This enables teams to analyze patterns and compared outcomes against similar scenarios. This reduces manual steps, keeps costs in check, and ties into financial reporting through a centralized database.

The platform gives a streamlined workflow across programs and sites, optimized to minimize waste and keep data-driven insights aligned with financial targets. It enables teams to analyze requisition requests, automatically generate orders, reducing manual steps, while the database stores historical trends for scenario planning and continuous improvement.

Available to planners across functions, the central repository connects planning modules with warehouse and supplier portals, ensuring only approved requisitions progress to order creation. This connected ecosystem shrinks latency, keeps people focused on analyze, and gives teams a clear path to scale as demand grows.

Consider a phased rollout starting with critical SKUs, and set KPIs such as cycle time, forecast accuracy, and financial impact to measure progress. Consider expanding the rollout after initial wins to additional categories. The approach keeps the organization focused, reduces manual work, and ensures data-driven decisions are available to leadership, with only the most impactful changes implemented first.

Data Migration Checklist for ERP Go-Live

Begin with a dedicated data governance sprint and centralized validation to ensure accuracy before cutover. Assign managers for each data domain, involve people from finance, operations, and IT, and establish a fixed freeze window since changes during migration risk corrupting the target. Use templates to standardize records and reduce rework, and document the plan in a single, centralized runbook; looking for clear accountability and faster decision cycles.

Define data migration scope: master data, open balances, payables, taxation, warehouses, charts of accounts, and cost centers. Create templates for customers, vendors, items, and locations. Prepare intelligent mapping rules and automated validation for enhancing accuracy in financials and enabling forecasts. Optimize data quality processes to achieve a simpler, faster migration. Since history matters, plan to move a historical slice and preserve open transactional data for reporting.

Pre-Cutover Validation

Run end-to-end tests against a non-production copy; verify accuracy of balances, taxation calculations, and payables postings; compare charts against expected outcomes; validate centralized security roles and approvals; confirm warehouses align with stock levels; ensure forecasts align with historical trends; capture exceptions in a centralized log to support improving processes.

Migration Execution

During cutover, execute a phased move to minimize risk: migrate high-impact domains first, then remaining data; maintain a mirrored trial until verification; use intelligent validation and automated reconciliations; track progress with charts and dashboards; keep simpler rollback options in case of discrepancy; aim to achieve a transition that is seamless and disruption-free; if you wish, dedicate owners to monitor execution and coordinate with stakeholders to ensure business continuity and looking ahead to post-go-live stabilization.

Regulatory Compliance Mapping by ERP Module (GxP, GDPR, SOX)

Adopt a module-specific control map and automated evidence collection to ensure GxP, GDPR, and SOX compliance; start with a reusable template and integrate with existing tools to improve productivity and reduce glitches.

• Develop a baseline regulatory map for each domain: GxP, GDPR, and SOX, linking control objectives to documented evidence, testing frequency, and ownership.
• Assign clear owners, milestones, and budgets for projects, ensuring accountability and timely risk mitigation; use basic measures to track progress and outcomes.
• Automate evidence capture for access controls, change management, data retention, and incident handling; store results in a centralized repository to simplify audits and avoid repetitive, manual collection.
• Leverage integrations with external systems to populate the evidence set, preserve data lineage, and support quick resolutions of findings; this reduces complexity and speeds audit responses.
• Embed a guide for auditors and a standardized offering of test scripts to validate controls; establish a point-in-time view plus a lifetime view of compliance status to monitor shifting risk levels.
• Incorporate finance data from xero as part of the SOX scope; ensure reconciliations are automated and traceable to supporting artifacts.
• Design a disruptions-ready workflow to resolve findings rapidly; accept that adjustments will occur and plan for basic, well-documented remediation steps that can be repeated across projects.

Key Mapping Principles

• Granularity: map each regulation to specific controls, tests, and evidence types suitable for automated collection.
• Traceability: maintain end-to-end lineage from data creation to authorization and archival; document reasons for each control decision.
• Automation: prioritize automated tests and alerts to reduce manual effort and sustain productivity over the lifetime of the program.
• External readiness: prepare for third-party audits by maintaining standardized templates, templates, and ready-to-share dashboards.
• Flexibility: design for many policy changes by using modular templates that can be updated without redesigning the entire map.

Implementation Checklist

1. Define scope: confirm which processes, data stores, and vendors fall under GxP, GDPR, and SOX in the current project portfolio.
2. Catalog controls: build a basic catalog with control objectives, required artifacts, testing methods, and responsible roles.
3. Set automation: implement automated collection of logs, approvals, and test results; route exceptions to owners for quick resolutions.
4. Align with vendors: perform risk assessments for external partners and document control requirements in vendor agreements.
5. Track performance: implement dashboards to monitor measures of productivity, audit readiness, and budget adherence; review at quarterly points.
6. Validate and scale: run a pilot in one project, capture lessons, then extend to other initiatives with updated integrations and guide updates.

Real-Time Inventory Visibility and Traceability Improvements

Choose a browser-based, automated tracking platform that links warehouses, distribution points, and third-party partners to deliver end-to-end visibility across a worldwide logistics network. This approach minimizes blind spots and speeds recall readiness while supporting compliance audits.

Deploy upgrades in three waves: core hub, regional hubs, and a final extension to slower-moving facilities. Use various models for item tagging (serial, lot, batch) and ensure tablets at the point of receipt and picking capture data in real time. Access to dashboards should be role-based and available from any device to enable field teams to verify material provenance instantly; implement customized views for different roles to speed decision-making. From day one, align with licensing terms that match usage to support a clear fiscal profile.

Implementation Roadmap

Architecture should be modular and browser-based; aim for loosely coupled services that integrate with a centralized data lake. Automated data ingestion from scanners and tablets reduces manual entry and errors; create rules that trigger alerts if stock drift exceeds a defined threshold. Times to reconcile inventory after every movement can drop from hours to minutes, and cycles for stock takes can shift to continuous reconciliation. Use standardized data models to support a single source of truth across locations. This is a game plan for growth.

Cost, Licensing, and Metrics

Costs should be assessed across licensing models (per user, per device, or consumption-based) and include third-party integrations. FreshBooks compatibility supports billing accuracy and project-level profitability, aiding the fiscal management goals. Expect a measurable lift in growth by reducing carrying costs, improving repair and replacement cycles, and keep stock aligned with demand. Calculate the impact on spend by comparing baseline costs with post-implementation numbers; target a favorable relationship between service quality and licensing spend. Regularly review licensing usage to avoid underutilized access and optimize the go-to value across lines of business.

Vendor Onboarding: Compliance Verification and Monitoring

Adopt a centralized, web-native onboarding workflow that automates compliance verification for all vendors and enables continuous monitoring across multi-entity networks.

Define required verifications: licenses, certifications, sanctions screening, tax identifiers, financial viability, and performance history. Use delmiaworks to orchestrate document collection, status tracking, and automated checks, ensuring the interface remains web-native and accessible from regional offices. This approach also facilitates consistent data capture and reduces manual bottlenecks, preventing clunky handoffs that slow progress.

Design the monitoring layer around KPIs (kpis): verification cycle time, incident rate, document validity expiration, and remediation time. Web-native dashboards pull from the common data layer, enabling the team to analyze trends, they can realize root causes, and keep functions aligned across engineering, procurement, and compliance. Automating alerts flags critical issues early, giving stakeholders visibility and will lead to faster risk reduction.

Align governance by forming a cross-functional team with engineering, procurement, legal, and compliance representatives. Address issues and challenges like incomplete vendor profiles and clunky integrations with external systems. The plan also leverages APIs to enable automating data exchange while keeping data consistent across all sites, reducing duplication and errors.

Operational controls: use edge computing and web-native portals to enable continuous screening and periodic re-verification. Establish a quarterly audit of records and ensure alignment with internal policies. This yields an additional layer of confidence and distribution of oversight across locations.

From a metrics standpoint, kpis drive decision-making, and the team can analyze outcomes to realize improvements. The approach has already been been used in pilot sites and is automated for routine checks, freeing staff to focus on higher-value work.

Audit Trails, Data Retention, and Regulatory Reporting Setup

Implement immutable audit trails that capture what happened, when, who, and from where; log access to content, changes to records, and exports; set a retention policy that keeps detailed logs for 7 years and maintains editions of summarized activity for an additional period; ensure these archives are accessible to authorized users and auditors, with a dedicated read-only delivery channel for regulatory reviews.

Data Retention and Lifecycle

Adopt a three-tier data lifecycle: hot, warm, cold. Automating move rules shifts content between tiers; after 24 months, leaving detailed logs in archival storage while summaries remain available for longer; assign a resource owner for each edition; incorporating tagging and metadata to increase accessibility and searchability; increased controls over retention and deletion settings; sage governance guidelines inform how the rules apply and how changes are approved; add technological safeguards such as tamper-evident logs and cryptographic checks.

Regulatory Reporting and Access

For regulatory reporting, define what fields are required and include multi-entity data; combine content from internal sources and vendors feeds; rollout automated delivery of reports to authorities in approved formats; capture quotes and notes as part of the submission record; apply role-based access to restrict some users; ensure hybrid delivery channels are used and monitored; maintain available edition content that supports audits and finances teams during close cycles.