Supply Chain Management

Project name
Working Capital Opportunities in Sales and Supply Chain

Situation
Several companies have hired us to quantify and highlight areas to optimize accounts payable, inventory and accounts receivable. Typically, working capital as a topic and its drivers are not widely enough understood outside finance to trigger optimizing actions.

Actions
During these projects, levers to optimize working capital components have been quantified, and key people in sales, customer service, central planning, material planning and procurement engaged to increase urgency and ownership for the improvement areas.

Outcome
List of improvement actions, implementation business case and a high-level road map.

Capacent has carried out over 300 Working Capital –projects, read case stories here.

Project name
Sales & Operations Planning Implementation

Situation
A company’s Sales & Operations planning process not in use resulting in a reactive action taking and over planned capacity. Some of the root causes to poor process adherence were organization structure and a highly manual workflow due to misuse of ERP and a lack of a demand planning software.

Action
A new functional organization was designed with detailed descriptions of Supply chain, Manufacturing & Sales. On top new S&OP process was co-designed, people trained, demand planning software implemented to finally roll-out the new S&OP process.

Outcome
Increased delivery flexibility and stock turnover.

Project name
Cost Reduction Opportunity Diagnostics in Manufacturing

Situation
A process industry company wanted to quantify variable & fixed cost optimization potential with existing assets. Their understanding of how investments impact cost base were well known, but optimization actions to performance not so.

Action
In cooperation with client management, manufacturing and maintenance organizations, overall plant efficiencies and individual process performances were analyzed, and the current management system mapped to highlight areas to reduce costs.

Outcome
List of improvement actions, implementation business case and a high-level road map.

Project name
Operational Excellence Implementation in Manufacturing

Situation
A process industry player’s manufacturing sites had low Operational Efficiency and low material efficiencies. The main reason was the high variance in processes which then led to poor controllability. On top, people's responsibilities weren’t clear and visibility into performance was not optimal.

Action
Engaging a cross-section of the organization a new management system was designed including clarified success factors and processes, new Key Performance Indicators designed, and visual management applications. After the redesign, the new management system was then rolled-out to control performance in manufacturing and maintenance.

On top, task forces were led to ensure an impact on the selected KPIs.

Outcome
Increased revenue and reduced variables costs.

Project name
Sourcing Maturity Assessment & Capability improvement

Situation
A machine manufacturer had updated their long-term group strategy and, in the process, noted challenges within their existing sourcing organization. Namely, sourcing's role was understood differently within the group and sourcing practices varied greatly between sites as the common direction was missing.

Action
Together with the client, a broad current state analysis was done by gathering data from ERP and from interviews to get a true understanding of how people see the issues. This input was used for a sourcing maturity assessment that helped clarify what worked well and to pinpoint where the focus should be put to improve.

The root cause for poor results was in time use. There was no split between strategic sourcing or operational sourcing, which in combination with poor transparency into upcoming demand resulted in a high operative workload.

To improve, a sourcing strategy was co-created to increase understanding within the group, operational and strategic sourcing duties were split between roles and finally, setup policies and processes to manage supplier portfolios were made to support the strategic sourcing managers.

Outcome

• Maturity position, business case, and improvement road map.
• Enhanced capability to negotiate better terms.
  

Project name
Supply chain design and implementation

Situation
The company wanted to reduce Working Capital tied to inventory. To achieve this, total flow and buffering strategy needed clarification, as too many products lay too far down stream.

Action
A bulk of finished goods were up-streamed in the flow into few service centers.

Outcome
Delivery performance was increased and around 500 M€ of cash was released.