What does a typical working day look like?
Fabian: “We have a total of 190,000 different part numbers divided across several categories. The diversity and volume of our article base is too large to evaluate on a daily basis. For this reason, we have to spread it out over several weekdays, with selections based on supplier or product type. On Tuesdays and Thursdays for example, we order tyres, on Friday we order hydraulic spare parts and so on. The advantage of having such a strict weekly schedule in place is that it brings peace to the rest of our organisation as well as to our suppliers. Internally, we can align our own processes while suppliers can better manage their own manufacturing plans.””We always start the day by exporting the production orders from our Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP system, to our supply chain planning system, Slim4. From there, the purchase advice for that day’s group of articles are calculated, taking into account service levels, order quantity discounts, lead times and consolidation of future demand.”
Pascal: “It’s then our task to check the order advice from Slim4. The goal is to minimise this workload by incorporating automated business rules. For example, Slim4 automatically checks if there are any end-of-life products among the orders, or more non-stock items to be ordered than what is strictly necessary for production.
“In addition to this, we are also responsible for managing rush orders and resolving delivery problems. Both our ERP system and Slim4 alert us to these issues. “