Supply Chain & Logistics

Your factory will have a demand requirement, usually an estimation from the sales team based on what they know or expect.

Forecasts  are usually built up as part of the annual budget and updated frequently based on events. The accuracy of your demand forecast will have a large bearing on everything from purchasing, stock holding, factory efficiency and waste. Clearly the better your forecast the better your control.

Collating all the relevant forecast information into a central tool is where Chasm get involved, and usually the output of this will feed factory planning & scheduling as well as MRP for purchasing requirements.

Typically the biggest reason that manufacturer’s reach out to Chasm.

It is the disconnect between what your site needs to fulfil orders and how that is planned and scheduled through the various processes, plus the amount of manual intervention needed.

Many factories have evolved over time and will have some armchair Excel expert who has linked together hundreds of spreadsheets and as long as they do the planning it works really well.  Most businesses we see have operations people messing with plans all day long.

Chasm will advise the best for your site which is either:

• take what you have and expand and/or simplify in the current format
• build from scratch in Access / Excel
• suggest an off the shelf solution

The hard work is not the building of such a solution, it is getting all the master data to make sure things link together. This will typically include;

• preferred line,
• run orders,
• crew size,
• speed,
• efficiency,
• changeover times,
• allergen run orders,
• stock levels,
• MLOR,
• internal shelf life etc etc.

Linking a schedule together that is easily flexed if things run behind or in front is a key factor.  If we have to change sequence how long does it take to update all processes?

Having a mechanism to plot the delivery of those schedules and track performance during the day is paramount. One of the key parts of the operation is “deliver the day”:

• hit the plan,
• in the right sequence,
• at the right quantity,
• to standard in terms of labour and material usage

‘Deliver the day’ first and foremost.

The S&OP is where we bring together the sales demand and the operational capability to agree outputs about how the factory will operate.
Whilst in the main the planning team are converting demand into line schedules there are many other factors that will form discussions at the S&OP:

• do we need to take machines out for maintenance?
• how do we fit trials for NPD?
• if we have no capacity how best to bridge the gap (overtime, shifts, extra lines),
• stock position
• promotions and seasonal peaks
• labour planning

The S&OP is quite a complex process, very critical to all businesses but severely lacking in most.

The main purpose of the WMS is a 100% accurate live stock position at all times during the day. Knowing what stocks you have in all formats is critical to the core functionality of the business.

Many businesses are still performing stock transactions manually, possibly not even in an ERP system and using daily / weekly stock counts to verify stock.

WMS solutions can vary from very simple to very complex and they are relatively inexpensive for the benefit they give.

The skill is finding the right solutions for your needs, integrating it to your current systems and ensuring transactional disciplines are in place to maintain accuracy.

Whether it is a bolt on module for  your ERP or another solution that needs building and integrating, Chasm have been involved in many.

Whatever your product or service and the type of fleet you operate there is always opportunity to deliver efficiency in vehicle utilisation, driver efficiency and logistics costs.

Fuel costs are increasing, traffic is getting worse, coupled with congestions zones, parking restrictions are all issues with running efficient vehicles.

Building solutions to maximise vehicle utilisation, driver efficiency, route scheduling or fuel efficiency are things Chasm do regularly;

• Medical supplies – building tools to maximise delivery time and route planning for 100 vans across 13 depots UK wide for medical deliveries.
• Construction – routs planning and job allocation system for a tipper company involved in aggregate delivery, much away and recycling
• Sandwiches – route optimisation for sandwich van delivery business running 80 vans UK wide delivering to stores, filling stations and local businesses.

Projects like this are specific to the client needs but all follow a similar format of software / app development and execution across the network.

A smaller area of what we do as it is quite niche, but procurement strategy, working capital management, supplier selection, tender processing are all things we get involved in.

Often procurement requires a specialist skill set that we will bring in as needed to support a project or specific need for the client.

Contract manufacture takes many forms and there are many reasons for looking at contract manufacture as an option.

• New start up – often you have developed a product and scaling from small kitchen to volume manufacture. Helping your source the right partner to take that scale is where Chasm support.
• Existing business with a new product that ‘does not fit’ in your current footprint.
• Consolidation – specifically closing manufacturing sites / lines for lower volume products that require manufacture elsewhere.
• Costs – closing a site to reduce costs is a bigger more complex project with wider supply chain implications. Chasm have run project to ‘offshore’ manufacturing in China, Thailand, Taiwan and mainland Europe.

Contract manufacture is usually a stand alone project requiring detailed planning & execution to maintain product supply during a transition.

The need for 3PL may be driven by a variety of factors.

• Cost – reducing internal costs by moving transport elsewhere
• Space – expansion of production space may require offsite storage, packing, consolidation & delivery
• Capability – the position of your site versus your customer depots often means the range of logistics is too great to do yourselves.
• Export – new markets may require setting up export deliveries and container shipment.

Whatever the reason Chasm have worked with all 3PL providers for warehousing, shunting, picking, consolidation & delivery across the UK & Europe.

Take a look at some of our case studies on this specific area.

A very specialist area of Chasm where we develop Apps specific to the needs of the client.

Chasm can create simple data collection tools or complex planning solutions that are bespoke to your specific business needs. Whatever the platform. Whatever the scale.

We are experts at working with existing systems and streamlining the transfer of data.

We understand the need for fast and meaningful information, and the necessity to enable managers to make the right decision quickly.

Utilising PowerApps, Power BI & SQL to get the right solution to your problem.