Customer
Norgren
Industry
Manufacturing
Key technologies
SAP SOP
Go-live
06/2020
Country
UK
Norgren, part of IMI, needed to improve the demand planning process in order to enhance customer service and provide them with top-notch, on-time delivery and to give the suppliers a better forecast. To achieve this result, Westernacher Consulting supported Norgren who successfully implemented a sustainable Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) system.
Eliminating complexity with SAP SOP.
Norgren creates innovative engineering solutions in the fields of precise motion and fluid motion technology, offering highly specialized and customized products such as actuators, air preparation products and pressure switches. They collaborate with customers in critical areas such as factory automation, material handling, rail, energy, life science and commercial vehicles.
Norgren needed an integrated planning platform to rapidly handle huge amounts of data to create real-time analysis based on a collaboration tool. They chose Westernacher as their solid partner to implement the S&OP system.
It’s essential to define a common language across all business departments and regions. For example, the production department may not understand the sales and demand data that is aggregated in the language spoken by the sales department.
Moreover, it is vital to build the right capabilities to meet future demand and solve how to translate a demand plan for 150,000 SKUs into a capacity and supply plan.
Optimizing decision-making for now and the future.
The main benefit of an effective S&OP plan is that Norgren has a view of the next 18 to 24 months instead of two to three. This in return greatly enhances the company’s decision-making process which in the end helps reach the strategic plan.
We wanted to create collaborative processes with a standardized demand and supply planning process where supply planning could consider capacity, inventory and supplier constraints, develop ‘what-if’ scenarios, moving to a structured mid- to long-term decision-making.
Daniel Nowack, Transformation Director and Global Supply Chain Director – Norgren GmbH
“S&OP is an interrogative monthly process,” says Sonja Janssen, Supply Chain Optimization PMO / European Regional Data Manager, Norgren GmbH. “The meeting should ideally be utilized for decision-making that should be proceeded by the background work and followed up by specific actions.”
Better information and forecasts enable Norgren to level capacity. This leads to better productivity, which in turn generates improved operating profit.
That was only possible because we picked the right people and the right implementation partner with Westernacher.
Daniel Nowack, Transformation Director and Global Supply Chain Director – Norgren GmbH
Westernacher Consulting helped Norgren to be well prepared for what is coming down the line, to be proactive with resource decisions in the factories and to be able to decide where to produce with the right capacities.
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