RHI MAGNESITA
She adds : “ In the past we had a simplistic view . Sales tells you what you need to produce , make a demand plan , translate this into production , and that was it .
“ But now , we challenge this much more . How much safety buffer is in the demand plan ? How reliable is it ? How good is the data ? This is now the starting point .”
“ A supply chain is optimised only when input data is reliable . This wasn ’ t any big system implementation . There was no big capital expenditure . It was a mindset change , and that ’ s often the hardest . It ’ s hard to tell every single salesperson to do things differently , but this is where we started .”
A big focus in the transformation process was on inventory .
“ We knew we needed better transparency on inventory ,” Oremovic says . “ How much coverage do we need ? How regional can the inventory be ? How can we optimise the warehousing strategy ? These were the kind of answers
RHI Magnesita quality control
“We ’ re better prepared in terms of data , knowledge , transparency , and forecasting capabilities , which cannot be underestimated ”
SIMONE OREMOVIC EXECUTIVE VP PEOPLE , PROJECTS & SCM , RHI MAGNESITA
we needed , so this is really optimising the core part of the supply chain , and it ’ s hugely important as it ’ s linked to working capital .”
Optimising transport was another area of focus . To do this , the company looked at a regional-for-regional model .
Oremovic says : “ We rearranged our footprint , which was very complex for us , by looking at what production could be done somewhere else by product transfers . Product transfers can take months but we have done this in certain instances to regionalise things more .
“ This is a learning out of the pandemic , because we saw how dependent we were on transportation , and how painful it was to see ports closed , borders closed and workforces being unavailable .”
This all means the company is also more resilient .
“ We ’ re better prepared in terms of data , knowledge ,
140 August 2023