Vendor managed means more efficiently managed

The RS team worked with the customer to gain an understanding of the existing procure-to-pay process and identify major pain points. They soon discovered how important this store is. “The company spends around £40,000 per annum on consumables in this area and it is a vital part of the operations, helping to keep the plant running 24/7,” says MacDonald. “The knock-on effects of not having a part available is significant if it effects equipment.”

There were, however, some big challenges. “There was an issue with inventory not being visible, leading to unnecessary purchases and downtime,” she continues. “They were purchasing products when they didn’t need them because they didn’t realise that they were already sitting on the shelves somewhere. This had financial implications and affected the rate of downtime, which has a cost to it too. For example, having to reduce the speed of the kiln can cost £14,000 per hour.

“Ordering goods when they didn’t need to meant duplicate parts everywhere. At the same time there was no uniformity to these parts. You’d have an engineer going to fix a conveyor and ordering a Schneider sensor, then next time ordering a Siemens one.”

The existing setup for managing the inventory was also far from ideal. “One of the customer’s engineers was doing a weekly stocktake, which was taking him away from his day-to-day role keeping the plant running,” MacDonald adds. The site’s head of electrical wanted a more efficient system, reducing what they described as “wasted time” and allowing the engineers to focus on his job list.

The RS team proposed the introduction of vendor-managed inventory solution RS ScanStock® for the replenishment of fast-moving critical items. This service sits alongside a national dedicated point of contact who can respond quickly to all enquiries.

This multi-pronged approach to tackling problems is crucial to success. “The customer chose RS because they were looking for a supplier that could help to improve efficiency by identifying ways to better manage inventory, which generates cost savings, and identify other opportunities to reduce costs,” says MacDonald. “They also wanted, as they put it, boots on the ground and with RS ScanStock®, they have that on a weekly basis. That allows us to react quickly to requests and changes.”

Most weeks it is Plant that provides those “boots on the ground”, replenishing 422 lines of products every month. The introduction of RS ScanStock® has eliminated 260 orders per annum, and with it £20,720 in costs associated with raising Purchase Orders every year.

It has also saved £2,600 by streamlining the processes around goods received, counting, GRN and putting stock away, and given back more than 15 days per year to the engineer who was previously conducting a weekly stocktake. The total potential savings amount to £118,437.

Plant has seen the difference that RS ScanStock® ^ ^has made to operational efficiency for himself. “It has changed things a lot,” he observes. “Having everything labelled up correctly is invaluable. Whereas before they spent a lot of time wondering where an item was.”

As this comment indicates, it isn’t just the engineer that was responsible for the weekly stocktake who has regained time. On the contrary, RS ScanStock® has freed up time for everyone who uses the store. This is time that they can spend on their core tasks, with increased productivity savings of £94,500.

Those who use the store also benefit from the support that Plant is able to offer. “Most of my conversations are with the people on site,” he says. “What they say to me is that they value having someone who they know will be there that they can go to with questions like do you have this part in this size?

“The difference this makes to them is great. A lot of the impact on paper is about higher-level management but the impact on the ground on site is immeasurable too.”