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Overseas Operation Needs Improvements
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Situation
A well established customer asked AMG Solutions to go
"onsite" at one of their overseas operations to help
improve customer service and logistics efficiency. The issues
were:
- The demand in the Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) system was not managed properly, thereby
failing to effectively inform members of the supply chain of
which items to make and which items to ship.
- The sales department was finding it
difficult to secure and provide accurate Requested Ship Dates
(RSD).
- The length of time to ship an order was
too long
- Productivity was very low on an hourly
basis.
- Inventory accuracy was very low.
- There was an overall lack of motivation
to improve any of these situations
AMG's
Role
Our role was to examine
the process, make a series of recommendations and improve the
overall operation. We were also to provide guidance and a plan to
enable the clients personnel to implement the improvements
Solutions
Several tasks were undertaken
- A tour of the facilities with
discussions and interviews of senior sales, production and
planning management. The purpose was to obtain a clear
understanding of the issues as interpreted by the key
personnel.
- We held a three day process mapping
session to document the process steps and flow
- The map was edited and confirmed by all
key personnel
- A new redesigned process was engineered
in co operation with the managing director.
- A functionality document was created for
a customized load planner. This was needed to insure that the
new process could be implemented
- Process model worksheets were created for
each step, detailing the inputs, outputs and requirements for
successful completion
- A timeline was created that included all
the steps required to accomplish implementation of the new
process
- AMG developed a series of recommendations
to increase inventory accuracy
- A report was presented which documented
all of the results
- An extensive training session was held to
educate the local staff on specific process mapping techniques
Results
- Increased motivation and understanding
of the complexity of each process created willingness to
improve
- Dramatically improved sales compliance
- Reduced shipping lead times
- Reduced freight costs
- Increased inventory accuracy
- Improved customer service with increases
in order visibility and accuracy
- Increased understanding of which items
needed to be prepared and increased inventory turns
- An extensive improvement project, that
could be implemented by local staff which in turn substantially
improved their knowledge, confidence and the overall capability
of the organization
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