GlobalSupplier - Daimler

20
South Africa Business
PPC workshop
on customer
supply chain
Customer supply chain optimisation. Another major step for DCSA to become
more competitive in the world market has been taken with plans to meet sales
demand by reducing leadtime on the W203 from three to two months.
Manager of Production Planning
and Control (PPC) in the Logistics
Division, Otto Wulff, said a target
date of September 2003 has been set
for implementation.
“As a South African company we have
to become more flexible to compete
in the world market,” Wulff said.
He said the reduced leadtime would
mean the quality of orders received
from customers would be far higher,
and it would mean the company
would gain the ability to react to
changes in the market far quicker
which would result in an overall
reduction in finished job inventories.
Sketching the background, Wulff
said that when DCSA received the
go-ahead to produce the right-hand
drive W203, the company had
defined a leadtime of three months
between receipt of the order from
sales in Germany and signing the
unit out of final inspection.
Excessive leadtime. “At the time they
were not happy with the long period
and we therefore started working on
a project to effectively reduce the
leadtime by one month.
“If we look at the current situation,
the German plants have a one
month leadtime and we have three
months, and it was felt that this was
excessive.
“They said the maximum transport
time for material between Germany
and South Africa is three weeks and
one could assume another week for
packing. They argued the leadtime
should not be longer than two
months,” Wulff said.
The outcome was a three day
workshop at the East London plant in
November to resolve the differences.
Participants comprised a core task
team from Germany and South
Africa.
“Having gone through the workshop
we believe it is possible to meet sales
demand for a reduction in leadtime
and we have set a target date of
September 2003 to institute it,” Wulff
said.
Greater flexibility.
The main benefits of a shortened
leadtime are:
* higher flexibility in programme
planning;
* uniform sales processes;
* easier introduction of new model
years;
* being prepared for order shortages
Otto Wulff … becoming more flexible.
during the course of the life cycle;
and
* improved value of the right
hand drive model in the markets
in terms of customer value,
competitive advantage and more
uniform leadtimes.
The current sales-to-plant leadtime
caused several problems for the
markets, including:
* customers waiting at least five
months for custom-built cars;
* unacceptable leadtime differences
to other models;
* competitors had shorter leadtimes;
* model year features were usually
ordered with a delay because
customers tended to buy only “what
they see”; and
* sales could not respond to
short-term changes in market
demand.