Fabory increases their service levels to 98%
Fabory is one of the few suppliers of fasteners still trading in individual items, i.e. when a customer wants 13 screws, the customer will receive 13, and not a number rounded up to the nearest boxful. This service is essential and despite the breadth of the range, in some cases certain fasteners are only purchased once or twice a year, Fabory want to be sure they can fulfill the demand. “We do not deal in high volumes and low prices, we are a specialist in small volumes with high added value”, says Maurice Geerars, Supply Chain Director.
In addition to fasteners, Fabory also offers tools and chemicals, resulting in them having to manage up to 125,000 SKUs in total. The breadth of the range means that managing the stock is a challenging task for their 8 planners. Whereas many companies split their products into A, B & C classifications, Fabory goes further and includes D, E & F classes as well. For a long time, Fabory utilized the functionality in their SAP environment to manage their inventory, however, this proved too complex as it offered insufficient transparency of their inventories and relied on a large amount of customisation.
Slimstock’s inventory management system, Slim4, was implemented as a ‘bolt on’ solution to SAP. In addition to the management of inventories becoming drastically easier, the inventory managers can now have confidence that the system automatically utilizes the correct forecasting methodology. By working in accordance to the ‘management by exception’ philosophy, they are now able to focus on the real problem cases. In short: thanks to Slim4 Fabory’s inventory management operation is more decisive.