RYB improves its stock availability rate thanks to Colibri

The polyethylene solutions specialist, based in the Isère department, is a leader in the plastic solutions market. With four production sites, annual revenues of €60 million in 2016, 170 employees and 25 tons processed each year, RYB is a major European player in its sector.

Challenges

RYB is subject to high seasonality, due to its sector of activity, and to increasingly long manufacturing times (minimum 15 hours). It therefore takes about 3 weeks minimum to replenish a stock, which does not meet customer expectations, in fact 80% of deliveries to Ryb are delivered in 5 days. It is therefore important for RYB to have a strong and effective planning process.
 

Before the implementation of Colibri, Excel was the tool used to make sales forecasts and its limitations blocked the complete implementation of the S&OP process.
 

Indeed, it was difficult to make forecast simulations at S&OP meetings. Salespeople who were not very involved because of the complexity of the tool made their own forecasts and had their own data.
 

Other more digital issues also pushed RYB to abandon Excel and look for a market solution:
 

•     Reduce the rate of rupture

•     Lower stock coverage

•     Limit manufacturing jolts with the establishment of emergency teams to replenish a stockpile

•     Reduce transport costs by limiting residual amounts.

Faced with these issues, Cyrille Antoine, Supply Chain and Operations Director, decided to look for a sales forecasting tool: "Forecasts make it possible to anticipate production and maintenance needs and therefore reduce transport costs, it had become necessary for us to turn to a specific tool in order to improve our service rate and BFR", he explains.
 

The new forecasting tool was therefore intended to make it possible to:

•     Perform more accurate real-time simulations by family, customer and product

•     Simulate the impact of load/capacity at S&OP arbitration meetings

•     Synthesize information into a single common database,

•     Respond to the strong need for collaboration between the different services.

Process

RYB's S&OP Process is classic and based on strong monitoring and regularity. During monthly cycles, sales representatives must enter their changes in relation to Colibri's forecasts. They are then present at the two arbitration meetings.