Operations and Supply Chain Efficiency

Procurement is crucial in cost control and supply chain efficiency. Clients should analyze their procurement practices to identify opportunities for improvement. By streamlining supplier selection, negotiating favorable contracts, implementing effective vendor management strategies, and embracing digital procurement solutions, clients can drive cost savings, improve supplier relationships, and ensure a reliable supply of quality materials. An optimized procurement process helps clients achieve better pricing, mitigate supply chain risks, and enhance overall operational performance. In a case when a large F&B firm wanted to know what the potential is to reduce costs across the value chain, our team members made an end-to-end diagnosis from raw material, packaging material, manufacturing including third-party manufacturing, warehousing, freight spent, spending on promotions (ATL and BTL). The team evaluated alternate sourcing, backward integration, cost sheets, route & fleet optimisation, effective ATL and BTL channels, timings, etc.. It arrived at a potential to reduce costs by Rs. 175 Cr.

Manufacturing operations are at the heart of many organizations. Clients need to focus on optimizing their production processes to drive efficiency, reduce costs, and improve product quality. Efficiencies can improved through lean manufacturing principles, process automation, equipment modernization, and continuous improvement initiatives. By eliminating waste, reducing downtime, improving throughput, and enhancing overall operational effectiveness, clients can increase productivity, meet customer demands more efficiently, and gain a competitive edge. In one of our cases, we helped a projects engineering company strapped with cash flow constraints and struggling to fulfill customer orders that were already delayed. By applying lean manufacturing principles, reducing inventory, improving productivity, and doing more from less, our team could ease the cash flow situation and get the company to meet the customer orders on the revised time and profitably.

An efficient and agile distribution network is crucial for the timely and cost-effective delivery of products to customers. Clients should assess their distribution network design, transportation methods, and inventory management practices. By leveraging advanced logistics technologies, optimizing transportation routes, consolidating shipments, and implementing demand-driven inventory strategies, clients can reduce transportation costs, minimize lead times, enhance order fulfillment, and improve customer satisfaction. Our team used our proprietary Global Distribution Network Model (GDNM) for a leading FMCG firm to model the right plant to the right market and the right customer to the right CFA. The network had about 40 manufacturing plants for over 1000 SKUs and 35 warehouses in the downstream network serving over 3,000 customers (distributors). Using the Qwixpert framework and tool, the team found ways to reduce logistics costs by 8%. In another case, our team helped an FMCG player to reduce the secondary transportation costs alone by 15% using Qwixpert’s Route Planning Tool (RPT)

An efficient and agile supply chain is critical for revenue optimization in the consumer goods and retail sectors. Clients should focus on streamlining their supply chain processes, reducing lead times, and optimizing inventory management. By minimizing stockouts, improving order fulfillment, and enhancing overall supply chain visibility, clients can avoid missed sales opportunities and increase revenue through improved operational efficiency. In an exciting case, our team helped a specialty chemical manufacturing client to reduce inventory by 20% (Rs. 100 Cr.) and improve service levels. In this case, the complexity was multi-stage batch production, multi-stage WIP, which are required to blend and form the final product, a preferred sequence of products to reduce the changeover time, and of course, ever-demanding customers wanting the products immediately. Our team designed end-to-end S&OP (sales and operations planning) from demand forecasting, FG inventory, production planning, and raw material planning, along with a dashboard in Power BI for the management to track. Our team also established a strong SCM team, from leadership to analysts, to sustain the results.

Warehousing operations can significantly impact the overall efficiency of the supply chain. Clients should optimize their warehouse layout, inventory management systems, and order fulfillment processes. By implementing warehouse automation, barcode scanning technologies, real-time inventory tracking, and efficient picking and packing methodologies, clients can reduce order processing time, minimize errors, improve order accuracy, and increase overall operational efficiency. A leading consumer durables brand wanted to evaluate automation for the plant warehouse handling raw materials, packing materials, and finished goods. Our team evaluated and designed the same with an ASRS warehouse under one roof to handle receipt of RM and PM to store in ASRS, issue the same to the production line, receipt of FG from production and store in ASRS, and dispatch of FG from the warehouse.
In another case, our team designed and implemented a large warehouse in a chemical manufacturing plant with high constraints on space. The warehouse was designed for very narrow aisle (VNA) trucks to handle RM and FG. Our team conceptualised and program-managed the implementation, detailed the whole WMS process required to run smoothly, and implemented it successfully.