Eurosérum, a world leader in the manufacture of demineralised whey for infant food is one of the subsidiaries of the Sodiaal Group, the leading French dairy cooperative which produces 4.6 billion litres of milk every year and has a turnover of 5.4 billion euros.

Eurosérum currently manages multi-site production of seven factories in France, two subsidiaries in Europe (Spain and Czech Republic), five subcontractors and five external contractors.  With many supply chain stakeholders and a complex production process, the main challenge Eurosérum faces is the ability to reconcile production with customer demand.  Indeed, it is due to this problematic workflow that Eurosérum considered a supply chain optimisation project involving production and sales and operations planning.

Understanding the business constraints…

In regards to the resources involved at the different stages of processing raw materials, the capacities of the company’s factories are subject to a number of hours per week.  Additionally, Eurosérum faces two external constraints:

Upstream, the arrival of raw materials are provided for each product and each site
Downstream, the customer demand for finished products is evaluated for each product-client

Before the establishment of FuturMaster, Eurosérum calculated their net requirements  in SAP by factory and article, but the need to establish an advanced planning system to optimise inventory and improve response to customer needs, soon became clear.  Indeed, the desired outcome of the project would have strong impacts on the different sectors of the business:

For the supply chain, increased service levels and better control of product flow
For finance, improved recovery of surplus, WCR (working capital requirements) and logistical costs
For quality, improved ability to meet delivery times, agreements and constraints

To address this global issue, Eurosérum launched a tendor to find an effective solution which allowed them to control the different supply chain processes and develop accurate production and sales and operation plans.

Why FuturMaster?

Deciding on a solution, Eurosérum chose FuturMaster’s production planning which is already present in a number of subsidiaries of the Sodiaal Group.

“Eurosérum examined various solutions on the market and FuturMaster stood out with proven capabilities.  They understood our business issues as well as our functional and technical issues” said Alexandre Moyaerts, Eurosérum Planning Manager.

The solution also caught the attention of the company through its ease of use and performance, the business expertise of FuturMaster consultants and the responsiveness of technical support.

Implementation of the project…

The deployment of the project began with two pilot factories in May 2012 and continued to all industrial sites within eight months with a transfer of skills to all business teams and a transfer of Eurosérum techniques.  The installation of FuturMaster on the latest company sites was then performed by the Eurosérum teams.

By the end of 2014, the aim is to develop and implement Sales and Operations Planning for Eurosérum.

Observed and expected benefits…

“The introduction of production planning for Eurosérum proves our solutions to be an effective part of sophisticated supply chain processes whilst ensuring a first class performance”, commented Michel Ramis, FuturMaster Vice President Sales & Marketing.

Since installing FuturMaster’s solutions, Eurosérum have seen the true reliability of the application compared to the old system that they had.

“Thanks to the introduction of the FuturMaster tool, we have created a new and structured planning department”, says Alexandre Moyaerts.

Indeed, FuturMaster will enable Eurosérum to fully optimise their inventory management over the long term, improve their service levels and better control logistical costs, all achieved through a better allocation of requirements against capabilities.