ESPA

The challenge: ensuring product availability in a growth environment

The pandemic marked a turning point for ESPA. While many sectors were experiencing a slowdown, the swimming pool market saw significant growth, which drove demand for its products.

“Covid, as it did for all companies, caused a downturn at first, but it ended up representing an opportunity. People stayed at home, decided to build swimming pools and we experienced a growth boom that allowed us to begin a stage that still continues,” says Ramón Vázquez, COO of ESPA.

Since then, the company has maintained annual growth of between 3% and 6%, creating new challenges for its operations: ensuring product availability when the customer needs it is a key factor in providing the required service level.

The challenge of leaving manual planning behind

Business growth made it clear that traditional methods were no longer sufficient to manage an increasingly complex supply chain. ESPA needed a platform that would allow it to structure planning, automate replenishment calculations and have a global view of the entire supply chain.

“We firmly believe that doing it by hand is impossible. Excel is still used in many companies, but Excel is useful for what it is useful for. We decided to take the step and implement Slimstock’s supply chain solution,” says Vázquez.

Why Slimstock?

During the selection process, ESPA analysed different solutions on the market before making a decision. In addition to the capabilities of the tool, the experience and closeness of the Slimstock team, as well as its support throughout the project, were decisive factors.

“We assessed different options on the market and concluded that Slimstock was the most reliable alternative. In addition, your closeness to the customer was a very important aspect for us,” summarises the operations director.

The results: structured data and more reliable planning decisions

The implementation of Slimstock’s solution allowed ESPA to start with one of the fundamental pillars of any planning process: data quality. The company was able to parameterise critical information such as supplier lead times, minimum inventory levels and the ABC classification of products, establishing a solid basis for decision-making.

With reliable and correctly structured information, the team was able to optimise demand and replenishment planning, gaining greater visibility over which materials it needs, when it should buy them and how to anticipate market needs.