28 SCS:THE EUROPEAN SUPPLY CHAIN EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2008 DECEMBER 2008 SUPPLY CHAIN STANDARD
www.supplychainstandard.com
Aerospace, Defence & Industrial Sponsored by YouGovCentaur
Shortlisted
Eurocopter
K+S Kali GmbH
Mondi
SEW Eurodrive GmbH
& Co KG
Klaus Venus, director of
logistics & order processes,
Mondi Uncoated Fine Paper,
holds the Aerospace,
Defence & Industrial trophy.
Alongside him are Margit
Schrenk (centre right),
supply & demand planning,
and Werner Schaumberger
(centre left), supply chain
manager, Europe &
International. Presenting
the Award is Alki Manias,
managing director of
YouGovCentaur (far right).
Also pictured is Jeremy Vine.
Winner
Mondi
This year German companies dominated the shortlist
for the Aerospace, Defence & Industrial category. What
is more, this was a high scoring sector and that always
makes the judging a little more difficult.
SEW Eurodrive has, since 2006, been involved in a series of
“LogNet” concept implementations for its European supply
chain focused around optimising manufacturing with
suppliers. Although there were commendable aspects to the
initiative, the judges thought it a relatively narrow point
solution that has been only partially implemented. Perhaps
this is one for next year’s awards.
The Eurocopter Group was created in 1992 from the merger
between the helicopter divisions of Aerospatiale-Matra
(France) and Daimler Chrysler Aerospace (Germany) and is
now a subsidiary of EADS. The Eurocopter entry was based on
a new logistics centre located in Germany, capable of achieving
spare parts delivery to anywhere in the world within 24 hours.
Over the past five years Eurocopter has experienced strong
growth which has focused the company’s attention on
outsourcing of non-core activities and has resulted in deep
collaboration with its logistics service provider, Fiege. Low
production volumes and very high costs per part mean
inventory levels tend to be high. With these significant
constraints and high service level requirements the Eurocopter
entry was considered good, but then this is a tough category.
K+S Kali GmbH operates a global supply chain for base
chemicals. The company has vertically integrated and now
owns the supply chain from the mine to its business
customers and the solution it has implemented is focused on
its global distribution network. K+S Kali has put in place an IT
-enabled solution that gives the company true visibility of all
the finished goods inventory in the distribution chain and has
implemented an order management system to offer a globally
integrated solution. The company manages 50 distribution
centres through this approach and due to the nature of the
product, K+S Kali works across several modes of transport –
sea, road and rail – into which it has integrated its key
transport providers. The result has been a significant
reduction in transport costs by about 25 per cent globally.
Again, this was a strong entry.
However, the winning entry came from Mondi, a global
paper and packaging company that has production
operations in 35 countries. Mondi was considered by the
judges to be the only company in the category that
demonstrated it had a truly end-to-end solution. The
company has successfully completed a supply chain
transformation, starting with a new and well-devised
supply chain strategy.
“What they have done that is really innovative for their
sector is that they have defined customer classes and
integrated with specific customers more deeply. For example,
they do collaborative planning with certain business partners,
In terms of scope, in terms of
completeness of implementation,
Mondi’s holistic approach and
the thoroughness of the
transformation they have
undertaken makes them stand out.
which has meant that they have had to improve their own
forecasting and planning,” say the judges.
For Mondi this has been a multi-year transformation over
which it has demonstrated that it has taken a rigorous stepby-step
approach to implementation. The solution includes
an intelligent strategy, sound process architecture, a new IT
system that supports the new strategy and then
implementation across the whole business which includes up
to 20 manufacturing locations worldwide. Its primary focus
was on increasing the transparency and visibility along the
supply chain. Mondi has clearly achieved this.
The company may be 80 per cent through its journey to
a complete solution, but Mondi can already demonstrate a
28 million euro cost reduction, a nine million euro
reduction in working capital, sales growth and a significant
improvement in service performance, all as a result of the
supply chain transformation.
The judges concluded: “In terms of scope, in terms of
completeness of implementation, Mondi’s holistic approach
and the thoroughness of the transformation they have
undertaken makes them stand out.”
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