Raskone Has Successfully Centralized Sourcing of Spare Parts with the Help of Relex and Ecraft

In the Management Event Forum for machinery and other equipment manufacturers in Vanajanlinna the 20^th of January 2010, Esa Mäkinen, Purchasing Director at Raskone, presented the Raskone development project for spare parts sourcing. In the project carried out with RELEX and partner eCraft, spare parts inventory management was centralized with the help of RELEX Processor.

Key results of the development project have been:

• A simplified purchasing chain to improve margins
• Significant service level improvement of key suppliers included in the centralized sourcing without increasing inventory levels
• A more efficient and controllable sourcing model through a centralized purchasing team

Besides centralizing actual sourcing, RELEX systems have enabled reorganizing existing inventories in the supply chain. Items with no demand in some locations have been shipped to other locations instead of local write-offs. A significant amount of dead stock has been taken into beneficial use.

Key learnings of the development project are:

• If you know roughly where to go, move fast into action
• Take a project into production in parts and be prepared to alter your approach as you learn by doing
• Flexibility of partners and systems is important
  • The flexibility of the RELEX system has been in a key position in the project –system has adapted to our way of doing things, not vice versa

Esa’s presentation is available here.