Improving Sub-tier OTIF performance by 13% in 12 months
Gardner Aerospace has expanded its global footprint over the last decade and, by 2017, had multiple sites in 5 different countries across the UK, France, Poland, India and China. Each site was using a similar ERP system but different versions and the group was manually extracting supplier performance metrics. Valuechain’s Supplier Portal simplifies KPI management, integrating multiple disparate ERP systems from each and providing a single source of truth. This allowed Gardner’s team to focus less on generating data and more on driving supply chain improvements and improving OTIF by over 13% within 12 months.
An introduction to Gardner Aerospace
Gardner Aerospace is a leading international manufacturer of aerospace finished components. With 11 sites across 5 global countries, Gardner’s global footprint means that they have the ability to support customers with localised & low-cost supply chains on a global scale.
Multiple-sites and Disparate Data Silos
Gardner Aerospace has expanded its global footprint over the last decade, and by 2017, they had a complex group structure with multiple overseas facilities supported by a global supply chain.
Gardner Aerospace explained: “the group structure was extremely complicated. Internally, KPIs were being created by individual sites. Meanwhile, at group level, reports were being extracted from each site’s MRP system, split by commodity groups and piecing together supplier codes with different currencies / sites. It was challenging to get a group level perspective of suppliers that had multiple sites. Everything was manual, but it was the only way to present KPIs which were meaningful to successfully manage supplier performance. This involved a huge amount of reporting duplication and often meant detailed reports could only be created for a small number of suppliers.”
“Additionally, data was static, meaning supplier delivery performance was solely reliant on the required date and delivery date within each MRP system, but wouldn’t consider any external factors. We realised very quickly that Gardner needed a system which would allow suppliers the option to collaborate by raising delivery appeals which the internal sites could review and confirm/reject with the ability to attach supporting documents and log an audit trail for reference.”
“NCRs were all managed through emails. Individually, a site level used MS word for any Root Cause Analysis required only by exception. This was reliant upon each quality department following up on progress and manually closing it out within their own MRP system.”
“The Group Structure was extremely complicated. We realised very quickly that Gardner needed a system for suppliers to collaborate by raising delivery appeals which the internal sites could review and confirm/reject with the ability to attach supporting documents and log an audit trail for reference.”
Gardner Aerospace
Working with Valuechain & Supplier Portal
Gardner continued “when Valuechain made the acquisition of our existing portal platform, Xactio, we sat down with them to discuss the roadmap. They presented their plans and we thought this was an exciting opportunity to collaborate and develop a ‘Supplier Portal’ with Valuechain Technology Limited (VTL) to the next level.”
Supply Chain Development Managers for Gardner Aerospace, Sarah Gleeson and Francios Laverdet, created an initial whitepaper scoping the requirements for the system that would provide the visibility and traceability required.
“The development team at VTL really listened and understood the complexity of the supply chain. They spent 1 year configuring the system to adhere to stringent aerospace sector requirements.”
There were several factors to consider, including:
- Real-time feeds from each MRP system globally, converting currencies into home rate and grouping suppliers
- NCR management with root cause analysis, collaboration, and fully traceable audit trails
- Delivery Appeal management with to ability to submit, accept/reject
- Forecasting model to be shared with suppliers
- KPIs required to manage Quality (PPM), Delivery (OTIF) and Cost (Value – home currency).
Working Smarter with Real-Time Supplier Analysis
The supplier portal has now been operational globally for almost 3 years. It is present in 9 of their 13 sites with 270 active suppliers on the portal, which has made a significant difference to how Gardner now manage their supply chain.
Furthermore, Gardner explained “Having the new system in place saves our team hours in generating data. We used to spend 3 weeks to generate data and 1 week analysing it before starting again for the month. Now, everything is automatically collated from different sites, so we can spend more time analysing. This led to our On-Time In-Full delivery performance improving by over 13%.”
“The Extended Filter allows us to view KPIs at either group level or site level so we could view strategic suppliers together. We can narrow further down to commodity groups / types, choose any timeframe required, and exclude internal suppliers. So, any user at any level within the organisation both internally and externally can quickly find the information they require without any need to run external reports, removing all duplication!”
