Case Study 2010 - Supply Chain Restructuring
Outsourcing the European Distribution Centre of a Global Printer Company.
A $200m turnover global printer company faced having to outsource part of its European distribution centre in The Netherlands at short notice. The USA HQ and local management teams recognised a shortage of local expertise and resource to meet this scale of challenge internally.
In June 2010 Opptic were contacted by a global printer vendor who needed help to outsource a major part of their $50m turnover European distribution centre operation to a local third party logistics (3PL) partner.
The local team had identified potential partners and negotiated outline price frameworks to break even with current run-rate costs. When notice to quit part of their existing facility was unexpectedly brought forward 4 months, Opptic were brought in to project manage the transition.
Within the first month Opptic had:
· conducted inventory and transaction analyses to determine efficient supply chain policies
· led the local team to identify an alternative preferred partner
· renegotiated all the rates
· set up SLA and pricing structure documents
· created a comprehensive project plan
· identified creative solutions to store slow moving product at significantly reduced rates
· instigated aggressive obsolete inventory reduction through selling or scrapping
· provided guidance in content and style of customer and supplier communications
· designed and created workflow documents covering all communications and processes
· set up procedures as required within both the host and the 3PL partners
Over the next 3 months Opptic managed all of the transition activities through the local team.
Transfer of physical product and all distribution activity to the 3PL was completed on time before the end of August.
Over €150,000 annual cost saving was achieved.
Opptic continued to support the local team through the first two months of business after the transition, at the partner site. This was to resolve issues as they arose, support the learning curve in the new operation, verify transaction consistency and invoicing, and smooth workflows as required.
This case study is an excellent example of an injection of experience and resource turning a challenging problem into a major win in terms of company profitability, while protecting service levels through transition. The Company has since utilised the documentation and experience generated from this project to support the in-house roll-out of similar projects in other regions.
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Last Updated (Tuesday, 04 January 2011 17:21)