Past Projects

Carinya Group was engaged by this client to undertake an End-to-End Supply Chain review for the Australian division of a US Allied Health Appliances business. The business had been experiencing significant reduction in market share as a result of difficulties in meeting ‘promise to serve’ relating to inventory fulfilment. We undertook the review to identify opportunities to address the problems, prioritise the review results and develop an implementation plan for the Supply Chain and Logistics team. The review identified the areas where greatest improvement could be achieved related to process improvement within the Purchasing team and implementation of a Demand Planning solution.

At the end of the review, we were asked to provide our consultant to fill an interim role as the Supply Chain Manager; which entailed managing 7 direct reports and driving and implementing improvement in the Purchasing and Demand Planning team. As a result of the work with the Purchasing team, our client was able to reduce purchasing lead times by 13% and decrease purchasing errors by 34%. With respect to the Demand Planning solution implementation, the business improved inventory forecasting in its ‘Class A’ inventory by 26% and undertook a Slow and Obsolete Stock (SLOBS) rationalisation project that increased average inventory stock turns by 50%.

Our role was as Project Manager and Consultant for a business process improvement project as part of this company’s global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) initiative. The new process (called Work Management) was introduced across the Maintenance, Health/Safety/Environment and Community & Production functions. The improvement projects included education, both workshop and coaching of staff, and design and implementation of pilot projects to validate the processes with the affected workforce. The application of effective Change Management by Carinya Group was a significant contributor to the success of this project.

We were also involved in the analysis and improvement of the Parts Management process at this organisation, which required working across the Supply and Maintenance functions. The improvement actions identified achieved significant efficiencies in existing processes and systems. It also resulted in a clear understanding of the end-to-end responsibilities of all stakeholders and resulted in adoption of fully integrated business activities. The improved processes are forecast to increase Mobile Plant availability by 23% and reduce cost by 12%.

Carinya Group established a ‘green field’ Supply Chain team in a major Australian office products business after completing a review of the company’s Supply Chain.

The Carinya Group team completed a review of the company’s existing Supply Chain and proposed a project to increase sales margins, improve the use of working capital and reduce operating expenses through better management of inventory. This was to be achieved by the establishment of a ‘green field’ Supply Chain function.

We undertook a number of Change Management activities, including Organisational Design and assisted with the hiring of the Supply Chain team, including the Supply Chain Manager, Demand Planning Manager, two Demand Planners and the National Inventory Manager. We also designed and established the business processes to be used by the Supply Chain function. This project impacted all functions of the business, from Sales through Merchandising, Logistics and Finance.

We then established and led two teams working on the implementation of a Sales and Operations Planning process, establishment of the Demand Planning function and implementation of a Demand Planning technology solution and Supplier Relationship Management. The team was working towards achieving identified annual operating expense cost reductions of $4.7m resulting from improved supply chain efficiencies and a $1.6m reduction in working capital requirements from improved inventory management.

This company had experienced significant growth in the retail sector over the last 10 years. Due to recent changes in ownership and a review of its existing strategy, this company required a review of the capability of its existing supply chain and development of options to support its future growth plans.

We undertook the role of Project Manager and Consultant in this review. The initial analysis required development of an end-to-end view of logistics costs, which had not been available previously due to the use of different business systems across the business. Cost savings opportunities identified in the current supply chain were in the range of $2.6-$2.9m resulting from changes to transport arrangements, recovery of transport costs, and reductions in obsolescent and damaged stock.

After the analysis of current performance was completed, the next phase required the development of fully costed [fully costed what?] and ranked options to support the business moving forward. These ranged from the development of a series of fast/slow Distribution Centres to the use of third-party logistics providers (3PL) warehouses to reduce capital expenditure requirements.

For this engagement we provided leadership for the Procurement stream as part of the planning phase of a shared services initiative for a Dubai-based property and construction group. The solution looked at all aspects of the ‘procurement to pay’ process, specifically ensuring that purchasing and payment authorisations would still remain within the purview of functional managers, while ensuring appropriate segregation of responsibilities were achieved.

The solution was to be put in place across all seven divisions within the group and reusing the best practices and processing in place from the existing technology platform in place. In addition, the parent company was not willing to impose a common solution across all businesses in the group, meaning that the final solution had to be achieved with total consensus of all parties.

Developed and implemented a Sales & Operations Planning process for a division of an Australian building products company. This project included a review of, and improvement to, current sales forecasting practices, which led to the development of a coordinated approach to business planning. Development of the S&OP process also prompted a review of the business inventory policies, including establishment of dynamic safety stock levels. The project required significant change management activity to ensure a successful outcome, as the business had operated in separate functional silos between sales, operations and logistics, which had resulted in significant inventory problems.

We led a strategic review of an Australian-based international food & beverage company’s domestic distribution network. The review identified the opportunity to reduce annual operating costs by between AUD$7-$9m, resulting from the rationalisation of 9 state-based distribution centres to 3 national distribution centres, without impacting customer service. The review also assessed operations of this company’s purpose built, export packaging and consolidation facility.

We undertook a review of the distribution strategy for an Australian building products company. This review identified risks to the existing business and process improvement opportunities. As a result of the review, we provided a Consultant who undertook a 9-month secondment to this client, filling a line management role, to act as a change agent for this division. Our primary focus was to ensure processes that were mapped for a recent ERP implementation were fine-tuned and embedded in the business, resulting in improved operational efficiencies.