COMPANY: Conestoga Wood Specialties
WEBSITE: COMPANY TYPE: www.conestogawood.com
INDUSTRY: Consumer Durables and Wholesale Distribution
Privately Held
JOHN GALT SOLUTION: Atlas Planning Platform
Company
Conestoga Wood Specialties, a manufacturer of high quality cabinet doors and wood components for both residential and commercial projects for more than 50 years, has set a high standard for on-time shipment at 99%, with thousands of deliveries each month across the United States.
In recent years, consumer preferences have shifted which required Conestoga to expand its product offering to also include wood alternatives. As a make-to-order (MTO) company, this meant aligning its supply chain and inventory management across a broader portfolio to maintain its high on-time shipment record.
Conestoga Wood Specialties turned to John Galt Solutions to leverage the Atlas Planning Platform to streamline inventory management, remove planning bottlenecks, and ensure the team continues to exceed customer expectations.
Results
- Reduced inventory costs by $1.4 million
- Established an automated demand planning process
- Improved visibility and accuracy of daily demand forecast
- Modernized and automated S&OP process
Challenge
Conestoga recognized the need to expand its offerings as consumer demand for sustainable options increased requiring the company to branch out to non-wood alternatives, as well as add options for additional product offerings, color selections, and more. As a make-to-order producer a streamlined, accurate, and agile planning system was required to ensure a successful pivot.
With more than 30,000 parts available for customization, a traditional inventory management system would not be sufficient. Further adding complexity, some alternative wood products require long lead times from overseas shipping. With a customer base accustomed to fast turnarounds, maintaining Conestoga’s reputation of on-time deliveries was a top priority. And they needed to do it all while not incurring stockouts, delays, or inventory overages.
Innovation to Drive Accurate Planning
To overcome these challenges and continue growing at the projected rate, Conestoga Wood Specialties reached out to John Galt Solutions. Bob Dudek, Sr. Supply Chain Manager at Conestoga says,
“We realized that we needed something more than our existing ERP system to match our business demands. Ultimately it came down to the fact that we weren’t just looking for a piece of software but the right partner to implement it and get it going. On that front, John Galt Solutions outshined all the other planning solutions.”
Bob Dudek, Sr. Supply Chain Manager, Conestoga Wood Specialties
Simplifying the Complexity of 30,000 Parts
Speed, agility, and maintaining customer service metrics were Conestoga’s main concerns, and Atlas was the solution. As an AI-driven, highly scalable, and flexible end-to-end planning platform, Atlas can be configured and deployed in short order. For example, in no time, the inventory system was populated with the attributes and variables necessary (30,000+ parts, 100’s of product types, manufacturing processes, functionality, users, and more) allowing the team to quickly drive value. In addition, Conestoga developed a solid, repeatable right foundation to drive its S&OP process which allowed the organization to move away from manual spreadsheet-based processes to automate its planning activities.
Automating Processes for Greater Efficiency
Leveraging Atlas’ core AI capabilities, Conestoga is able to automate its myriad of forecasting processes that were previously manual. This led to significant improvements in productivity, the elimination of human error, and allowed Conestoga to reassign valuable human capital to focus on additional strategic initiatives.
Laying the Foundation for the Future
Conestoga initially planned to use Atlas solely to drive their inventory management and improve the execution of inventory-related tasks. As Conestoga recognized what was possible with Atlas—they began expanding. The original project of inventory management saw incredible results (savings upwards of $1.4 million USD) and was a key driver for expanding the scope to support Conestoga’s S&OP processes for its OEM wood products division. In addition to S&OP, the expanded scope also included rough-cut capacity planning (RCCP) to support raw materials and labor management needs.
"Starting out with Atlas, we were focusing on managing our purchase orders, but we always knew we can use this platform for so much more. In the last year alone, we have tripled the things we do with Atlas and we were able to go through these tasks fairly easily.”
Standardize Forecasting Processes
By linking demand planning and inventory planning in Atlas, Conestoga now manages all its planning activities using a single unified solution. Now, rather than having multiple departments and teams siloed in their planning process, everything is consolidated in one place and each team can access the data they need from that single source. This “single source of truth” approach signals Conestoga’s digital transformation into a truly data-driven enterprise.
Winner of Top Supply Chain Projects Award Based on Achievements
Following the implementation of Atlas and the significant business improvements achieved, Conestoga was chosen by Supply and Demand Chain Executive for a Top Supply Chain Projects award. This annual award focuses on collaborations that deliver value to enterprises across a range of supply chain functions, and recognizes the industry’s most successful and transformative projects over the course of one year.
"We are thrilled to see our project receive this notable distinction. Leveraging Atlas' AI-driven planning platform helped Conestoga reduce inventory costs by $1.4 million, establish an automated demand planning process, improve visibility and accuracy of daily demand forecasts, and modernize and automate our S&OP process."
- Robert Dudek, Senior Supply Chain Manager, Conestoga Wood Specialties.
