End-to-end supply chain visibility over 18 countries

Overview

Within Bridgestone, the Visibility Project (Vi-P) was born to create service excellence by improving the reliability and visibility on the end-to-end supply chain. Vi-P addressed all aspects of transformation: process definition, system implementation, changes in the organizational set-up and its people in order to come to a new harmonized ecosystem.

Client Profile

Bridgestone Europe is a subsidiary of the world’s number one tire manufacturer. Along the supply chain and sales organization, 850 people are spread over more than 18 countries.

Challenge

From regional customer service, planning, operations and sales to production planning and scheduling – all those stakeholders had to change their way of working or abandon many historically grown habits in order to achieve reliable end-to-end visibility.

Consequently, a high focus was put on change management. A solid impact assessment at the beginning and a resulting transformation plan made sure every impacted person knew that he or she was a “VIP in Vi-P!”.

Solution

A new Distribution Requirements Planning created internal supply chain visibility towards the markets & to create reliable stock transfer orders in a fair-share way. The Order-Promise process had as main objective to promise supply to the customers taking into account inbounds to Regional Distribution Centers based on planned production.

Our MOUNTK methodology allowed us to build a fully integrated change organization. Clear roles were defined (Change Sponsor, Change Agent, Key User).  For each role, people were assigned centrally and locally. In order to measure the soft side of change, we captured the individual ADKAR results at regular times and took action where needed.