Economic pressures meant that the client was looking for continuing ways in which to get value from the supply chain. We were carrying out post-SAP implementation optimisation work and noticed that there were several million dollars of non-productive inventory.

We worked with the rework handlers to ascertain whether items could be re-used. Identifying that there was generally intent to re-use the stocks we then had to analyse why this was not occurring.

Our investigations found that many factors limited the re-use of materials, involving different departments and changing production plans. Additionally, information flows were not supported by the SAP system.

As a result we designed a new workflow, but found that the SAP system itself did not make the task of re-use simple. Using a lean approach, we designed an external database application that took SAP data on a read-only basis and created a workflow application that took the users through the rework flow.

This led to a reduction of 50 per cent in non-productive inventory in four months, from around 5 million Euros to 2.5 million, with ongoing improvements.

In addition, this was achieved with 10 per cent fewer staff than were working on the same problem at other sites. The programme is being rolled out to other sites globally. Inspired by this we developed a new approach and a new product called Alchemy.

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