For supply chain leaders, disruptions come with the territory. But now, the effects of COVID-19 have taken supply chain complexity to another level. Our recent webinar discussed how supply chain network modeling can help increase your network’s resilience and support future growth.
Earlier this month, we sat down with two of our European clients for an in-depth discussion about their recent experiences with Chainalytics’ Supply Chain Design consulting practice.
Why take on a supply chain design project?
Weber-Stephen Products, a worldwide leader in the outdoor cooking and grilling category, was looking to optimize its European network to position the brand for long-term growth as well as deliver greater cost efficiencies and service levels, driving differentiation from competing brands. Lamb-Weston Meijer is one of the top producers of frozen potato products globally. Their focus is on creating a continuous network modeling capability to enable on-going strategic decision-making and to help optimize network investments.
What was your biggest takeaway from the process?
A supply chain design project is a journey, and one often learns unexpected lessons along the way. As Mark Lawrence from Weber-Stephen commented, “The real enlightenment is when you understand your business in data terms – what true costs are, what is included in the costs — from sales, marketing, and finance through to the operations and logistics teams. You confirm a lot of things about your business that you previously only had anecdotal evidence on.” The client began the exercise with a hypothesis of what they wanted to achieve and, as the process continued, the idea became less a hypothesis and more a fact.
Jos Gommers of Lamb Weston Meijer also found real wisdom in the collection and understanding of the data. “We could see what our organization, and our business, really looked like.” Since their business depends on the agricultural output of select geographic regions, the company came into the process with a limited set of pre-defined choices for adding capacity. The model we helped them create quickly allowed them to rule out some options.
What sort of results can you expect from supply chain design?
A supply chain network design analysis provides an in-depth, data-driven understanding of your supply chain at a very granular level. It provides end-to-end visibility and informed decision-making capability, allowing you to align your network rapidly. This holistic view of the supply chain makes possible the evaluation of many complex relationships, such as the impact your investments in resilience have on your cost optimization efforts. You can understand the relationships between cost-to-serve and your cost of complexity, and the effects of “what-if” disruptive scenarios.
Chainalytics’ proven network design approach begins with data collection, validation, and analysis. We bring together your expertise and our own, conducting strategy and operations discovery to collaborate on the definition of constraints and objectives. The collective effort begins to bear fruit by creating a baseline model, a key step toward building a “digital twin” of your supply chain. This model is validated against historical data, helping you build confidence in the model’s accuracy and the results of dozens of scenarios. These will reveal quick wins for your supply chain and ideal long-term network strategies.
A supply chain network model lets you see your organization in a new light, one defined by hard data. Reach out to us and see how Chainalytics can help you refine your supply chain strategy while optimizing cost-to-serve and resilience. Using one-of-a-kind tools and approaches like digital assets and managed analytics services, we consistently deliver actionable insights and measurable outcomes to our clients.
Erik Diks, Managing Director, Europe at Chainalytics, has been a supply chain management adviser for over 20 years. Throughout his career, he has supported multinationals such as Coca-Cola, Heineken, and Bayer with large-scale transformational projects that better align their supply chain and business strategies throughout his career. Currently, Erik manages the sales and delivery of Chainalytics’ end-to-end supply chain consulting services in the European region.
Soumya Basu is a Europe-based Principal at Chainalytics. His areas of expertise include demand and supply planning, inventory optimization, and supply chain network design – across a variety of industries and geographies.
