Crisis management in an industrial supply chain
Supported this chemicals producer to rapidly resolve a major operations crisis in a key warehouse in Europe.
In a paralysed warehouse that had recently gone live with a third party logistics partner, we rapidly diagnosed and addressed issues across information feeds, order prioritisation, picking, shipping and distribution, leaving a smoothly functioning operation and a restored collaboration between our client and their logistics partner.
Context
Amidst a broader review of operational improvement opportunities within the warehousing and supply chain operations of this chemicals producer’s European business, our expert team were pulled in to address a major operational crisis in one of the clients’ main warehouses in Europe.
The warehouse, a new third party operation, had come to a shock standstill: orders were mounting up and not leaving, systems were paralysed, and the financial consequences were crippling. For eight weeks, our team led a root and branch crisis management intervention that put day-to-day operations back on track.
Approach
Our lead consultant has over 25 years of supply chain expertise spanning consulting, PE advisory and on-the-ground supply chain experience. All of these were brought to bear in a rapid situation assessment and his hands-on leadership of the operational turnaround: quickly unlocking problems, cutting the backlog and getting product flowing again.
On the ground, information feeds were reset, order prioritisation was redrawn, picking and shipping were redesigned, and the distribution reconfigured.
At the same time, panic was calmed, teams were brought alongside, and the partnership between our client and the third party supplier was repaired and relaunched.
Impact
By the end of the successful intervention the crisis was resolved and operations had been optimised, with 75% of the order backlog cleared and capacity increased by 50% without additional resources.
Subsequently, the learnings provided invaluable knowledge for our team and our client to apply to the broader transformation programme we had originally embarked upon together.
The reconfigured warehouse provided a template for operational improvement right across Europe, turning a disaster into progress.