Situation
MetaExperts® Joe was brought on board to help a large lead-acid battery manufacturer suffering from conflicting planning, organizational consensus, and performance gaps. He determined that the main issues stemmed from:
- Differing objectives and forecasts between Sales, Finance and Supply Chain
- Performance gaps were not readily identified and addressed
- Risks were not consistently identified and resolved
- Unexpected gaps in the planning
Actions
To address these problems, Joe introduced a robust Sales and Operations Planning process. This process creates a collaborative effort between all business units with a monthly cadence of meetings and events. On a regular basis, balanced supply and demand plans are determined, inventory is optimized, and risk, opportunities, and gaps are determined with actionable counter-measures.
Results
Through the process of consensus building, meeting facilitation, and supply planning, MetaExpert Joe was able to implement a collaborative planning process. The company achieved the following results:
- Inventory turns improved by 18%.
- Order fulfillment rates are above 95% to key after-market customers - 100% for original equipment manufacturers.
- Capital projects were proposed and approved to resolve capacity bottlenecks.