Customer service and inventory
The changes have not been discussed very explicitly yet with the Opco’s. This is partly due to
the fact that within Sara Lee the contacts with the customers are the end responsibility of Value
stream management (VSM), a unit that does not fall under plant management. That makes the
decision process about changes in these relationships more complicated.
The delivery reliability for the non-collaborative Opco’s is defined as the percentage of the
deployment plan that is realized. That percentage has not changed. For the collaborative Opco’s
the local sku inventories are relevant. There is a norm safety stock that varies from 3 – 5 weeks
(depending on the blend). During the pilot it appeared to be possible to keep the safety stocks
right on this norm, while before the pilot, the safety stocks varied from 0 to 8 weeks. This
improved control of safety stocks resulted in a reduction of overtime stock. The pilot has also led
to a more systematic measuring and reporting of the run-out times at sku level.
The total inventory has increased. The total inventory was at the start of the pilot below the
critical limit. The increase during this period is partly normal, because of demand seasonality and
because of the yearly winter-stop. The run-sizes for the cyclic blends in this pilot were above
average, to realize this increase. Thereafter the run-sizes have been reduced.