A Multipronged Solution for Supply Chain & Operations

MULTIPRONGED SOLUTION IN THE PAPER AND PACKAGING INDUSTRY

A leader in the pulp and paper industry was struggling to operate their large network efficiently. There were many siloed efforts across a large network of paper and container plants which if able to act as one, would provide more value than the sum of their parts. Our team addressed a number of problems across the organization.

Implemented a monthly Sales & Operations Planning cadence including enactment of Demand Planning, Supply Planning and System balancing. S&OP became the playbook for the company and was the framework for deciding what and where to produce. It proved successful in both under and over sold markets. Drove in ~$20M in EBITDA benefits in one year alone from improved mix management. This success was backed by the use of analytical tools on profitability by sales managers in the field as well as new decision-making protocols on price and volume commitments. Our team weaved in a volume-profit hybrid customer segmentation model into the S&OP cadence. This model allowed protection in a down market, but also an opportunity to take advantage of oversold markets and increase EBITDA, while improving customer service levels.

Our team worked with the company to improve the visibility and flow of the procure to pay process from requisition through payment for goods. Defined decision rights for procurement across the entire organization significantly decreased spending and had a positive effect on MRO inventory. The new process allowed for visibility of the purchase order throughout every step of the process which led ot more on time payments and better relationships with vendors.

Our team worked with the manufacturing operations team to take inventory of all the best practices across the high performing plants and implemented these as system wide standards which significantly improved the financial performance of underperforming plants. The team helped leadership identify what KPI’s should be used, and developed an automated daily operations report to keep the initiative on track. These consistent standards and quality levels allowed the company to maximize sales across the system by balancing demand and supply across regions instead of individual plants.