PITTSBURGH, March 20 -- SmartOps Corporation, the leading provider of enterprise-class inventory optimization solutions, announced today that Sun Chemical Corporation, the world's largest manufacturer of printing inks and pigments, has selected SmartOps' Multistage Inventory Planning & Optimization (MIPO) solution to reduce inventory levels and improve supply chain performance. "Our goal is to implement technology and processes to reduce and sustain significantly lower inventory levels while also improving service levels," says Stuart Foster, vice president of operations for Sun Chemical North America. "MIPO's ability to scale across a complex, multi-echelon supply chain like ours-with a huge range of items, locations and stages-will play an important role in meeting this ambitious objective." Several factors led Sun Chemical to select MIPO as the company's inventory optimization solution. For example, MIPO's multistage capabilities identify opportunities for postponement and pooling, enabling it to accommodate bill- of-material and independent or dependent demand at any given node within the company's supply chain. "SmartOps MIPO gives Sun Chemical enterprise-worthy inventory data management functionality today that allows global coordination and consistency, along with highly granular planning capabilities-setting the stage for step-change improvements to the company's supply chain performance," says Sridhar Tayur, CEO of SmartOps. MIPO enables customers to achieve both a rapid return on investment and a long-term competitive advantage by determining the best possible inventory and product availability plans given inherent uncertainties, time-varying data, multi-location and inventory stage complexities, and aggressive customer service goals of today's real world supply chains. MIPO dynamically generates optimal inventory targets for each stage of the supply chain while providing visibility into each inventory requirement-including safety, cycle, pre-build, pipeline and merchandising stock requirements, by item or stock-keeping unit (SKU)-to meet desired service levels.