Customer characteristic: This family business supplies a wide range of concrete products for earthworks, civil engineering and hydraulic engineering, as well as products for landscaping. The organization operates in both the B2B market (infra market, landscapers and dealers) and the B2C market, with direct deliveries to consumers. With three production facilities and multiple sales locations including showrooms, the company has some 300 employees. Much of its product range is produced in its own factories, making an efficient supply chain crucial. Challenges and reason: The company was experiencing fragmented processes in the areas of production, supply and demand planning, leading to inefficiencies and limited collaboration between departments. The need for a centralized and structured Supply Chain department became increasingly apparent, especially to achieve better alignment between production and market demand. In addition, a robust Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process was missing, which created a lack of strategic planning and difficulties in coordinating the supply chain. Activities: To address these challenges, an interim Supply Chain manager was appointed with the goal of improving processes, establishing a Supply Chain department and implementing S&OP. This was done in the following steps:
- Improve production, supply and demand planning processes: Some of the existing planning processes were manual and inefficient. Work was done to digitize and streamline these processes. Instead of paper schedules, Excel was implemented as an analysis tool, which gave more insight and flexibility to the schedules.
- Coaching and personal development plans: the Supply Chain team received intensive coaching to develop new skills and work better together. This included looking at employees’ personal development plans and providing internal coaching to support the team’s growth.
- Implement S&OP at strategic, tactical and operational levels: An S&OP process was established, including associated analysis tools and a structured meeting structure. The process helped align demand and production capacity at strategic, tactical and operational levels.
- Create department and develop job descriptions: An organizational chart was developed for the new Supply Chain department, and job descriptions were created. In collaboration with HR, job openings were posted both internally and externally to attract the right talent.
Results: The approach resulted in significant improvements within the organization:
- Implementation of an S&OP process: This process was successfully implemented, including an analysis tool that provided better planning and a new structure for meetings that allowed different departments to work together better.
- Improved planning processes: The use of Excel as a planning and analysis tool replaced the old paper-based methods, providing better overview and more efficient processes in production, supply and demand planning.
- A working Supply Chain department: The creation of a new department and the appointment of the right people laid the foundation for a more structured and forward-looking approach to the supply chain, resulting in improved operational performance and a stronger connection between production and demand.
Conclusion: Thanks to the creation of a professional Supply Chain department and the successful implementation of the S&OP process, this family-owned company has laid a solid foundation for further growth and efficiency improvements. The organization is now better able to respond to market demands, while internal cooperation has greatly improved. This gives them a competitive advantage in both the B2B and B2C markets, and ensures a more stable and future-proof business.
