Network and footprint redesign projects are strategic, complex, and often long-term efforts that can be challenging to deliver.

The emergence of new technologies combined with changes in customer behavior (values and aspirations), and the rising importance of sustainability, has driven a complete transformation in logistics over the past few decades. Supply Chain has become a core strategical area, whose role is to balance, design and deploy a transformation mandate:

• Serving as the backbone of the organization’s operations, bringing a holistic view of the client’s operations and ensuring an integrated view from customers to suppliers;
• Creating a strategic agenda to lay-out foundations that enable sustainable differentiation, consumer experience, and optimal cost structure.

Within this new reality, the importance of Supply Chain is clear, as are the complexities involved in establishing a comprehensive and optimized supply chain network. Regardless of whether it is an opening, closing, and/or transferring of a site, Supply Chain Network Transformation cannot be treated as a simple “Logistics Project”. This is a sensitive process, which involves internal and external elements and impacts the organization’s functions, suppliers, and customers.

More than the technical challenge related to logistics changes, this is a transformation that impacts the whole organization, with interdependencies across multiple functions and the involvement of external elements in which the company does not have direct management:

• Internal Elements: Supply Chain Network Transformation encompasses changes in all supply processes, from procurement to delivery, but is not a Supply Chain stand-alone initiative – it demands an adjustment in the processes of other functions. These areas need to collaborate and be involved in the decision-making processes, bringing a broader business perspective to the transformation. Having it as an organization initiative, and not only a Supply Chain effort, means facing challenges related to the team’s alignment, decision-making pace, and prioritization of effort.
• External Elements: Supply Chain Network Transformation also depends on various external factors – such as regulations, licenses, third party logistics, and IT providers – aspects in which the organization has a lower level of control, demanding a greater capacity of managing and reacting to risk.

The ability to engage and mobilize the organization areas and third parties, manage activities and interdependencies, and identify and react to risks are critical to success. Without these foundations, the potential impact of risks increases cumulatively for both the organization and its clients:

• Higher costs and timing to implement the proposed network
• Damage to Company Brand, due to the inability to meet customer expectations regarding service level
• Disruption on the business operations and/or increase on E&O (Excess and Obsolete)
• Increase in Costs (Warehousing and Transportation) and negative effect on cash-flow

Integration provides organizations with a holistic and sustainable approach to successfully transform the Supply Network, combining our technical expertise in supply chain with our vast experience in project implementation and change management.

Our methodology supports our clients to:

• Translate the strategic drivers of the business case into concrete actions
• Redesign core processes to enable the transformation
• Prepare a detailed implementation plan to lead execution
• Design and launch the governance model to track project progress and facilitate fast decision making
• Anticipate and monitor the identification of capacity bottle necks on unexpected links of the supply chain
• Prepare the future organizational structure readiness (functions, skills, competences, governance, KPIs, tools) to lead a footprint that operates at higher levels of utilization
• Build the communication and training plans to manage impacted parties through the change

With our approach, we are able to guarantee tangible benefits:

• Implementation of the transformation on time and on budget, with week-by-week visibility to the organization
• Increased flexibility to adjust to external changes; facilitation of key decisions based on simulated impact
• Greater capacity to anticipate risks and react to issues, eliminating barriers with a clear escalation flow
• Improved management of the cross-team needs and efforts and of other company resources
• Alignment across suppliers and customers on key dates and impacts, to ensure a smooth transition
• Minimized disruption to base business throughout the transformation
• Complete preparation of the organization to operate within the new Supply Network from day 1 of Go Live
• Reduced risks in OOO (Out of Order) and E&O (Excess and Obsolete)
• Clear measurement of the implementation performance, using success criteria in line with strategic objectives

A tried-and-tested methodology, tailored to your reality

While Integration believes that our clients know their business better than anyone else, we help you to overcome challenges by providing outside experience, proven methodologies, and cross-industry benchmarks.

Combining our in-depth supply chain technical expertise with our strengths in project management and business transformation, we work with your team, suppliers, and other third parties involved, and ensure a tailored, realistic, and flexible approach to absorb uncertainty, making the transition as smooth as possible.