Case Study - Tembec
Tim Brown, IT Director for Tembec’s Pulp and Paper Groups, was first introduced to I.M.A. at an IndusWorld conference. Discussions regarding our Catalog Management service were of particular interest to him at that time. He knew Tembec needed to improve its management of stores inventory, but managing the mills’ Stores catalogs across the corporation had always presented a challenge. It seemed that I.M.A. could provide them with an affordable solution to their problem.
At Tembec, each of their eleven Pulp and Paper sites operate autonomously, with responsibility for managing their own inventory. The decision to implement a new CMMS system company wide brought their corporate catalog issues to the forefront. And creating a corporate catalog of consistent inventory data was something I.M.A. could do for Tembec.
Tembec created a cross-functional team, including members from: Maintenance, Purchasing, IT and Stores. Together we tailored the data to Tembec’s internal needs. On a site-by-site basis, data was cleaned, standardized and enhanced, then amalgamated into the Corporate database prior to “go-live” with the new system. All this, while keeping many of the local site naming nuances intact.
“I.M.A. played an important role assisting Tembec in standardizing and improving business processes, systems and naming nomenclature related to maintenance, stores inventory, and capital spare part stocking activities.”
To date, six of the eleven sites are on the new system. At each site, duplicates and overstock items have been identified. The payback was evident almost immediately. Identified savings accumulated to a total of roughly $500,000 per site within the first three to six months after implementation. Additionally the standardization of the naming nomenclature has set the stage for many more e-commerce cost reduction opportunities.
The real value is realized corporately, enabled by the on-going Catalog Management service. Now Tembec is able to leverage purchasing, share spares, consolidate suppliers, reduce inventory levels, use down excess stock across the corporation and create regional and national purchasing programs.
“I.M.A. has worked with Tembec to design and implement a process whereby rapid easy access to a single view of stores inventory is available. We can now identify opportunities to reduce stores inventory levels as well as report on vendor performance across all of our mills."
Today, I.M.A. assumes all responsibility for the day-to-day additions/changes/deletions to the Tembec Corporate Catalog. In addition, it also manages the daily operations for Tembec’s Corporate Vendor file.
