A holistic purchasing transformation with the goal of an increased degree of maturity and a measurable value contribution for the company (costs, lead time, risk) is often demanded by companies. This usually consists of a quantitative and qualitative analysis phase, a design phase with the result of a renewed or newly created purchasing strategy and an implementation phase in which strategic, organizational, cost-reducing and risk-reducing measures are defined and also implemented.

In critical situations such as restructuring or lack of profitability, the focus is often on a pure cost reduction program – here a team approach between purchasing, users and our team is very important in order to maximize business case and ROI as well as ensure sustainability.

The recent boom made many companies focus on the digitization and automation of strategic and operational purchasing processes (S2C / P2P). The cleansing of all purchasing data, consolidation of the IT architecture and implementation of modern methods such as artificial intelligence also form a focal point of our activities.

Our assets and methods for the above presented project models include practical and easy-to-use BI tools and templates, proven and cooperative workshop formats, benchmarks and an active expert and industry network for all purchasing categories, as well as our quality-tested ecosystem.

Methods & Assets

Operations Excellence is in demand wherever companies are not yet using their full productivity potential. For this reason, we work with our customers to analyse non-value-adding parts in the value chain and eliminate causes such as sub-optimal inventories and buffer stocks, incomplete utilization of processing machines or sub-optimal planning and control of production. To this end, we work in projects on the shop floor and according to the lean philosophy in order to realize the identified potentials in a sustainable manner.

The need for plant structure planning often arises due to volume growth, consolidation or excessive costs. We use modern planning tools for the analysis of your space, with which we determine the current space usage and requirements and analyse the existing processes. Based on this, we create a detailed layout with the optimal target processes. Often, improvements can be achieved at short notice and without major structural measures by making appropriate adjustments.

In cases of company acquisitions or historically grown site allocations, it often makes sense to review the global production footprint. Together with our customers, we review manufacturing and transport costs and question unused capacities, incompatible systems and redundant processes at the individual sites. In our projects, we use classic methods such as value stream analysis & design as well as modern BI tools in order to achieve the goal of a more efficient use of resources.

Methods & Assets

Network planning projects deal with overlaps in the supply area and unfavourable transport relations. In addition, the focus is on optimizing the overall process costs by including cost aspects at the relevant locations (cost to serve). A realistic structuring of cost drivers together with our customers is essential for this. With clearly structured process costs, the actual profitability of end customers or products/product groups becomes transparent and decisions in sales or before investments are better supported.

In order to improve transport and warehouse management, we work with our customers to create transparency, select IT solutions (TMS/WMS), develop key figures and control systems, introduce efficient processes and reduce costs.

For inventory optimization, we focus on process and information improvement at trigger points such as production planning and operative purchasing. In the projects, we analyze demand, inventory and order data, among other things, from which clear recommendations for disposition rules are derived. The transparent presentation of planned and actual lead times as well as the necessary net processing time is another starting point for reducing WIP (Work-in-Progress).

Supply Chain Partners accompanies our customers after the analysis during the entire transformation up to the stabilization of the new logistics systems.

Methods & Assets

Digitization is not only on everyone’s lips, in recent years it has become one of the most important levers for change in companies. Digitization begins in the company with the optimal use of existing systems (ERP, SRM, planning, …) and ends today with techniques of machine learning, artificial intelligence or cryptography. For all these elements, the market offers products, solutions, providers, experts and a flood of information sources. Our BI-solution SCIO® aggregates different sources of information and creates a valid basis for further decisions or extensions of your digital ecosystem.

With our know-how of the technical needs and digital ecosystem – a network of developers, vendors and opinion leaders of these technologies – we build the bridge between industry and technology that makes the cooperation successful for both sides: From the selection of the right products and providers to the proof of concept, successful implementation and measurable improvement.

The Supply Chain Act (in short LkSG) aims to improve the human rights situation and environmental protection with the help of risk awareness and prevention.

From 01.01.2023, companies with more than 3,000 employees (from 01.01.2024 > 1,000 EE) in Germany are obliged to bring transparency into their supply chain and to document or report on their activities to implement the law in their operations and supply chain. Accordingly, suppliers of these companies will be required to provide information on the aforementioned requirements.

At its core, the LkSG involves professionalizing supplier management and expanding risk management to include sustainable aspects of the supply chain. Part of the projects is to bring the necessary transparency of the supply chain into the company and – if necessary – to select or adapt suitable risk analysis and documentation tools according to requirements.

With the accompanying documentation and reporting obligations, communication also plays an important role in addition to data analysis/processing and the introduction of specialist processes. In implementation, these projects therefore usually require a cross-functional team from purchasing, HR, legal (compliance), sales and communications (PR).