$500K saved on Nearly Expired Inventory
Introduction
In this case study, we’ll examine how the Head of Planning for a manufacturing company was able to cut costs on inventory expiration in a short period of time with The Owl’s Inventory Expiration module.
By leveraging The Owl, the Head of Planning was able to use data-driven technology to reduce inventory expiration, improve operating margins, reduce inefficiencies, and ultimately become more customer-centric.
The Challenge: Increased operational costs due to expired materials
This Head of Planning is responsible for seeking new ways to control and reduce the financial impacts of inventory write-offs. The root cause of inventory losses was unclear. He discovered that while ERP and other transactional systems were in place, there continued to be a data knowledge gap between all the supply chain systems that did not interact with each other. This meant his team was responsible for spending hours extracting spreadsheets and scrubbing them to make sense of data.
Why They Chose The Owl
The Owl’s team of supply chain experts was able to quickly assess the company’s pain points and display all the data for product inventory in one central location in the cloud within a matter of weeks.
The team can view the shelf life of each item on a clear graph, helping to determine which products are approaching obsolescence. The Owls dashboard also provides real-time data, so the team was confident they were always working with the more relevant information.
“The Owl was appealing because it was such a simple approach to a highly complex problem. I was amazed at the team’s quick turnaround for a solution with minimal involvement from IT and our line of business people. I was especially thrilled we were able to tap into additional one-on-one support from The Owl’s supply chain experts. They were able to help me through each step of the process, making it easy to understand. This ‘white-glove’ attention removed any complications I would have faced on his own.”The Owl was appealing because it was such a simple approach to a highly complex problem. I was amazed at the team’s quick turnaround for a solution with minimal involvement from IT and our line of business people. I was especially thrilled we were able to tap into additional one-on-one support from The Owl’s supply chain experts. They were able to help me through each step of the process, making it easy to understand. This ‘white-glove’ attention removed any complications I would have faced on his own.”
—Head of Planning
The Results
Within 6 months, the company was able to achieve a $500,000 decrease in inventory write-off risks and a 50% reduction in inventory with less than 75% remaining shelf life. As a result, they were able to improve the health of their inventory and reduce slow-moving inventory.
Their planning team was able to eliminate 85% of low value-added activities, saving valuable time that would have been spent on manual data scrubbing, and redirecting those resources towards higher value work.
We encourage you to contact us to schedule an industry-specific demo or learn more about how you can reduce inventory waste.