The Client:

A 2nd-generation family-owned business that distributes hygiene consumable products, servicing aged care and hospitality customers in both Sydney and rural areas in NSW.

Challenge:

Faced with the strategic decision to split the business into two separate operations, considering that the two separate industries operate in very different operating models. To accurately assess this, they needed to understand their costs and margins at each location.

The company were experiencing:

• Very poor stock turns
• Poor GMROI
• Business vulnerability was measured as extreme

Intervention:

We applied our IPA methodology to help understand what changes to their inventory policy and distribution strategy were needed. The initial review highlighted the following:

• The return on inventory invested had dropped by 52% over the four years examined
• Excess stock represented 78% of their inventory holding, while 224 inventory lines were understocked
• 339 lines had greater than 3 years’ inventory and represented $2.9 mil of their inventory holding
• Plus, another insights the client was unaware of

Recommendations included:

• Different inventory policy settings based on their strategic profile
• Deployment of strategic supplier strategies
• Deployment of cycle counting regimes for improved inventory control
• Improvement in Sales & Operations Planning process S&OP 

Results included:

• Systems set up to manage two separate operating models – no need to separate entities
• A significant reduction in working capital is required to run the business. While exact numbers are confidential, the reduction was in the seven-figure range
• Massive improvement in stock turns and return on investment in inventory by three times
• Revenue improvements due to improved customer service and better-targeted inventory

The client:

A leading Australian industrial company operates in Australia, the USA, Canada, India, and China, specialising in wear solutions for mining equipment. They provide a wide array of custom-designed products tailored for the mining and resources sector, as well as rail and transit, and general casting markets.

Challenge:

An aging ERP system was contributing to; a significant number of manual workarounds, heavily leveraging Microsoft Excel, lack of trust in the operational and financial numbers. They needed independent advice and assistance to identify the right replacement

Intervention:

Utilised SureSelect™ methodology to help the business identify suitable candidates identify and discuss the real requirements of the business with software vendors. Prepare a tender-ready RFP, facilitate the software vendor response review process, facilitate the decision to identify software demonstration candidates all while withstanding and managing the significant political and sophisticated sales pressure and tactics brought to bear by the very large software applications. Facilitated the selection and decision-making process, resulting in the right product and support partner for them.

We also provided advice with negotiating both the licensing and services contracts and helped prepare the business for the implementation ahead.

The client:

An ASX listed organisation manufacturing recreational vehicles for both sale and to service their own hire business.

Challenge:

The company was questioning whether they had the right ERP system because they were struggling with the supply chain disruptions occurring in 2021, resulting in the operations team having to perform a significant amount of manual work rescheduling production based on what vehicle chassis were available to them. The team was overwhelmed in the amount of manual work they had to complete.

Product Used:

• ERP Restoration™

Intervention:

Utilised my ERP Restoration™ methodology to review the current use of the system and configuration settings. Tasks undertaken included:

• Discovered they had implemented significant manual workarounds to cater for the team’s lack of knowledge of how to use the system. For example, they were using their BI tool to undertake MRP and purchase order recommendations.
• Renegotiated arrangements with the ERP support vendor and set up knowledge transfer sessions to build capability within the business.
• Set up real-time data capture processes at individual work centres on the production floor to provide real-time inventory consumption information. Allowing purchasing to understand the real status of inventory when procurement activities were undertaken. The company already had the equipment but had not been able to make them work previously.
• Undertook a review of all MRP settings and made adjustments to; lead times, minimum order quantities, min/max levels,
• Reviewed inventory transfer triggers to improve the timeliness of inventory movements to ensure supply to the product line while levelling the work demands on the warehouse workers

Result:

The staff in the company are now fully capable of operating the system on their own without assistance from the vendor.

MRP system is being used as designed and the team have a deep understanding of the process and is now constantly tweaking settings to resolve issues rather than building workarounds.

Production scheduling is now a much simpler process and fewer adjustments are being made because the reliability of inventory status is not reliable. Necessary changes to the production schedule are now being picked up by MRP and handled appropriately in action messages being delivered by the system.

The confidence level in the system’s capability has completely changed and the workload to manage production and inventory is significantly lower, resulting in a more productive operation and the improvements in profitability and capital utilisation and now starting to show in corporate reports.

CEO stated the work we did was instrumental in the business growing from $74 mil to $140 Mil.

The client:

Major manufacturer, distributor and retailer of motor vehicle accessories headquartered in Brisbane. They have retail operations in both Australia and the USA. They have manufacturing and wholesale operations in Asia.

Challenge:

The newly appointed Executive General Manager was referred to me by a colleague. He asked me to help them understand what the state of play was regarding their ERP system. He was hearing a significant level of noise in the business blaming the ERP system for all sorts of troubles and ills. He wanted an independent view of what the real position was and advice as to whether they should replace the system or not, and if not, what they should do to stop the system from being a constraint to their growth plans.

Product Used:

• Supply Chain & Technology Audit
• SureSelect™
• Project Governance for recommendation implementation

Intervention:

Conducted a full supply chain and technology audit involving a detailed investigation of the ERP configuration, observations of shop floor operations and deep interviews of key personnel from both shop floor workers, middle management, and senior executives. I delivered a comprehensive report covering 65 different subject matter topics and providing 30 individual recommendations. The recommendations were broken into three distinct timeframes, Do Now, Do Short Term and Long Term. The total project took three months and involved combining elements from my proprietary Supply Chain & Technology Audit methodology and my ERP Success Formula offerings.

Result:

The EGM indicated the report, “… was the best investment in IT I have ever made”. I was re-engaged over a series of smaller engagements to help implement the recommendations. In the two years since that work was completed the company has been able to stabilise and fully utilise the MRP capability in the system, roll out the point of sale capability to all their company owned stores, incorporated the USA operations into the system providing that division with the capability to rapidly expand their offering in this new and highly competitive market. The system has now also allowed them to open a new distribution operation in Asia. The inventory control capability has vastly improved across this multinational organisation, despite having to manage the supply chain disruptions in 2021 & 2022, resulting in them being able to get back on track and achieve their five year goal of being ready to publicly list the organisation.

This work was classified by the EGM as instrumental to the business growing from $45 mil to $170 Mil.

The client:

A family-owned wholesale and distribution business servicing the Qld health industries, such as doctor surgeries, hospitals both public and private and aged care facilities from a Brisbane head office.

Challenge:

The company believed their ageing AS 400 based ERP system was constraining the business. They wanted assistance to identify a suitable replacement ERP.

Product Used:

• Supply Chain & Technology Audit
• Project Governance for recommendation implementation

Intervention:

After some initial discussions, I established that they didn’t need a new ERP system. While the system could have been classified as a legacy “Green Screen” system rather than being GUI based, it did have functionality that was not being leveraged very well and could handle the existing business requirements.

Instead of undertaking an ERP replacement project, I recommended we undertake a supply chain audit. This audit entails an in-depth examination of the business and how it uses technology to both support the business and leverage competitive advantages. From that examination, a 93-page report containing 40 different recommendations was produced and presented to the client.

The recommendations ranged from:

• strategic, where I recommended the sale of one division of the business
• to tactical involving deploying new technology such as a fax card for electronic document delivery through to implementing radio frequency devices in the warehouse to help automate manual tasks, reconfiguring existing ERP settings, implementing improved business processes, such as inventory management, and measuring supplier performance.

Result:

The report made a significant impact on the owner when they realised, they had an independent advisor that would provide full and frank advice and assessments, someone that would have no hidden agendas, and that would tell them what they needed rather than provide what they wanted. They had not experienced having that kind of advice before and felt it was extremely valuable to have that independent view and input.

I was then re-engaged to help them implement those recommendations. By working with their team, specifically the operational team, we deployed many of the operational recommendations in under four months. This provided the business with the foundations to allow operations to meet promises being made to the market by their salespeople.

With the implementation of those recommendations, the business revenue doubled over the next three years, without adding to its staff numbers, leading to significant profit improvements. The owner was also in a position to step back from his day-to-day role and take a more passive role in the business while it grew.