Our team’s clear expertise led the client to expand the scope of their original project in order to uncover operational and supply chain improvements.
The Challenge
A privately owned, Europe-based manufacturer of specialty chemicals for a range of global industrial, construction, and other end-user segments sought to better understand the U.S. market for a particular product line.
During our team’s work on this market assessment, it became clear that the company’s operations, particularly supply chain management, were not fully optimized. The client expanded our scope of work to target challenged areas and identify specific actions for improvement.
Customized Operational Review, Including Supply Chain
In this second phase of work, our team focused on analyzing the client’s operations and supply chain management.
Operational
Analyses
- Reviewed operational metrics
- Explored capacities and capabilities for various product areas
- Analyzed product mix and selling price; demonstrated that selling price per unit provided opportunities for maximizing profit
- Analyzed first-time right for processing areas
Supply Chain
Analyses
- Reviewed on-time shipment data
- Explored format for information regarding off-spec, slow moving, and over-age reporting
- Evaluated metrics and targets
The Results
Following a thorough exploration of the client’s operations and supply chain systems, our team recommended numerous meaningful operational metrics to help both the workforce and management improve operations and processes. Through our exploration of product costing, we were able to highlight opportunities to improve margins, specifically related to labor- and equipment-intensive products vs. simpler standard products.
Our insight also discovered that price changes would enable the client to achieve appropriate value for service on small-volume products. Finally, we provided an approach to capture and analyze on-time shipment data, which enables the client to better understand causes and develop solutions to key problems.