Southgate Customer Story

After launching a supply transformation project, Southgate has experienced outstanding results. With Slimstock’s support, the leading packaging distributor successfully adopted Slimstock’s Slim4 platform to reduce inventory while improving service levels.

With over 50 years of experience, Southgate stands at the forefront of the industry as Europe’s leading manufacturer and distributor of packaging equipment. Following rapid growth, Southgate embarked on a supply chain transformation journey to reduce working capital tied up in stock and improve availability.

Project Results

With the mission of providing customers with innovative packaging solutions and exceptional standard of service, Southgate outlined four main goals for the project: reduce inventory, improve service levels, minimise stock-outs and improve operational efficiency.

In pursuit of these ambitious objectives, Southgate surpassed its own expectations to achieve remarkable performance improvements within just a few months:

• 9% inventory reduction, reaching the 2023 stock target three months earlier than anticipated
• Availability increased from 91% to 96%

Supporting a cultural shift

Catalina Aldoiu, Head of Supply Chain at Southgate, highlights the impact of growth on the family-owned business: “In the past, supply chain decisions were based on the knowledge of our people who patched issues as they arose. However, we needed to streamline our operations and implement clear and well-established processes to keep up with our growth ambitions. Therefore, the focus of this project was also about adapting our culture, approach, and priorities to help our business thrive.”

Catalina goes on to explain the decision to partner with Slimstock: “We needed a solution that could support the complexity of our business. But more importantly, we needed a partner with the right experience to guide us.”

Seamless implementation

Reflecting on the implementation process, Catalina remarks: “Our supply chain team was highly engaged and eager to take full advantage of Slim4’s powerful planning capabilities. Slimstock worked proactively to help us overcome any challenges that arose to keep our transformation project on track.”

“The communication during the implementation process was outstanding. And even when we did encounter hurdles in the process, Slimstock’s experts were prompt to help us find a solution,” adds Sarah Valentine, Supply Chain Analyst at Southgate.

Increased efficiency

Following the successful adoption of the Slim4 platform, Southgate now utilises the platform’s advanced AI-enabled algorithms to generate precise demand insights. Furthermore, underpinned by exception-based alerts, the planning team can focus their time on the most crucial issues.

“Thanks to the support of Slimstock’s robust supply planning solution, we have substantially improved efficiency and visibility across the network,” emphasises Catalina.

Next Steps

As the business pursues further growth, Slimstock will continue to support Southgate’s planning team. “We are actively exploring innovative approaches to visualise our data and mature our S&OP process,” concludes Catalina.