Valent BioSciences Reduces Inventory & Stockouts
COMPANY: Valent BioSciences
WEBSITE: www.ValentBioSciences.com
INDUSTRY: Chemical, Agribusiness
COMPANY TYPE: Part of Sumitomo Chemical Company [TYO:4005]
JOHN GALT SOLUTION: Atlas Planning Suite
Results
- Reduced inventory and stock-outs
- Gained better insights for distribution planning and global sourcing
- Improved internal S&OP processes and collaboration across teams
- Increased sales and overall customer satisfaction
Company
Valent BioSciences (Valent) is a global biotechnology leader in research, development and commercialization of effective, low-risk, environmentally-safe technologies and products for the agricultural, health and consumer markets.
Primary product lines include environmentally safe bioinsecticides and plant growth regulators. Valent creates best-in-class products leveraging the power of naturally occurring or chemically derived elements for sustainable use. Valent now holds the largest portfolio of biorational products in the world.
Challenge
Prior to implementing Atlas, Valent used in-house proprietary spreadsheets for demand planning, forecasting and distribution planning. Processes were manual and time-consuming. Their forecasts often proved inaccurate which either led to excess inventory with substantial carrying costs or stock-outs which resulted in lost sales and customer dissatisfaction.
Valent sources chemicals from all over the world where they naturally occur. This creates relatively long lead times, adding complexity to their supply chain and forecasting process.
Solution
Valent knew they needed a better demand planning tool to solve their inventory and distribution challenges. They also needed a tool that would let them collaborate with vendors and customers, incorporating their input to improve the overall forecast. Finally, they needed a tool that would facilitate a S&OP process to align all business functions around a one-number consensus forecast.
Valent partnered with John Galt to implement the Atlas Planning Suite to address their supply chain challenges in a fast, cost-effective manner. Using Atlas, Valent vastly improved their forecasting accuracy, positioned product strategically in their global distribution network and broke down internal operational silos. The flexibility of the tool has allowed Valent to easily re-configure the Atlas to fit the company grew and as their planning process matured.
Atlas provides better data to corroborate forecasts that creates consensus among the organization internally between supply chain, marketing, sales and finance teams. As director of supply chain, Martin Kieffer states, Valent is now able to walk out of the room after an S&OP meeting with one number that everyone feels comfortable with.
Benefit
Supply chain performance and customer satisfaction are inextricably linked. Valent was able to leverage their improved forecasting to not only lower inventory and decrease stockouts but to also increase sales. Atlas didn’t just help save time and free up capital, it contributed directly to Valent BS’s bottom line.
Valent also now enjoys improved collaboration, visibility and communication between departments. This helps them manage relationships and expectations with all parties involved. Employees now save time on forecasting and planning and can focus on other core aspects of their business.
“Atlas helped us drive additional sales and lower our inventory. We now collaborate with Sales and Marketing and Finance to create a strong one-number consensus forecast”
Martin Keiffer, Director of Supply Chain
