Assignment
WeY was tasked with managing the supply chain organization of the NPIs. To serve the customer and communicate a clear supply and demand plan regarding the delivery of the NPI product.
Approach
In close contact with the engineering department, our WeY consultant developed a working process to integrate the project-wise way of working of the NPI project into the daily operation of purchasing, planning, production, and logistics. Demand and Supply tuning with the customer; from delivering the first prototypes to volume ready, planning and securing the future move rates. Handing over the structured supply chain, with minimal robust lead times, to the operational (volume) organization.
In cooperation with the customer of LHTS, a way of working was developed for the so-called Heart Beats; a recurrent process of combining engineering changes in a “heartbeat” every 6 months. Planning of these heart beats with the goal to be as flexible as possible with reducing change lead times with reducing risk of obsolescence. Close collaboration between the customer, LHTS engineering, and early supply chain involvement was needed.
Results
A clear way of working was developed for all steps in the NPI process, handovers are defined between different departments. NPI development and production is more accepted and understood in operations. A clear view of future move rates is established in a plan. Time to market for engineering changes is reduced to one-third with minimal risk of obsolescence (reduced in this case to one-tenth).
- Early supplier involvement upstream in the supply chain
- Time to market of engineering changes reduced by 250 days
- Reduction of risk of obsolescence in an environment of frequent engineering changes