Consumer Products
SITUATION
Consumer products manufacturer facing increasing costs sought to improve customer service, reduce inventory, and better manage its suppliers.
DRIVER GOAL
- Improve “line item fill rates” to 96%.
- Reduce obsolete inventory to near zero and turn time to 14 days.
- Reduce order lead time to 8 weeks.
RESULT
- Reduced obsolete inventory to 2% and turn to 15 days.
- Reduced order lead time to 4 weeks on standard products (8 weeks on non-standard).
Case Study
Optimize Supply Chain & Reduce Costs
Issue
A manufacturer of consumer products facing increasing costs, particularly in promotional sales, sought to improve customer service, reduce inventory, increase inventory turns and develop and implement a process to manage its suppliers.
Highland Approach
The Highland Group worked with client leadership to define Driver Goals and implemented a system for aligning the organization’s activities with the high-level goals. Co-teams mapped the Promotional Sales, Customer Service and other supply chain workflows to identify opportunities to improve key indicators and to shift toward a “make to order” fulfillment process. Targeted improvement projects enabled the teams to achieve cost, lead time and inventory reductions. A structured operating system served to keep the client and its suppliers on track to maintain and grow the gains.
Actions Taken
- Instituted a goal roll-down and translation process.
- Developed and implemented a new “make to order” process for Promotional Sales.
- Designed and implemented a management operating system for Promotional Sales.
- Implemented a reward and recognition process.
- Developed a barrier identification and removal process.
- Coordinated changes in the Promotional Sales process between the client and its suppliers.
