McCormick Case Study

McCormick the global brand

McCormick is a global leader in the manufacture, marketing and distribution of spices, herbs, seasonings, specialty foods and flavors to the entire food industry. From their first products in 1889 to the innovative spices, seasonings and flavorings they now offer, McCormick has always brought our customers and consumers the best ingredients and expertise available.

Planning problems before Reflex

Before the introduction of Reflex McCormick had multiple legacy systems providing stand alone solutions for Forecasting, Planning and Scheduling of which the later was performed using in-house Excel based spreadsheets. There was no system for long term planning, just again their dependence on in-house Excel spreadsheets which were very time consuming to maintain and update, and there were known accuracy issues with the results.

With little confidence in their planning results the stock levels were either maintained at very high levels or the factory had to have resources to enable them to react at very short notice to any significant changes in Demand or other such change. Hence the productivity levels were low while the wastage was high.

Reflex planning suite

The Reflex suite of planning modules consolidated these systems into an integrated solution delivering the Forecast with weekly promotions, long term Planning, Capacity Planning and Materials and Packaging requirements together with finite Scheduling for both day to day usage and resource planning across the factory.

McCormick had no method for long term supply or inventory plans, to address issues such as 'What if' the Safety Stocks were reduced by 20%, what would be the impact on service and profitability.

The most important benefit has been the long term predictability which has given them better control of Inventory requirements and improved service levels. The Reporting capability has improved significantly delivering reports instantly reducing both analysts and managers time.

"My time spent on preparing and generating reports for our S & OP process has been reduced from 7 days a month to 1, and I can be confident the figures are valid" a relieved Chris Meir, Planning Manager.

Optimisation means improved productivity

The optimization of the factory with Reflex Scheduler has reduced the number of change-overs and increased production time, which in turn has meant fewer resources are required to operate the factory production lines.

The considered decision on the optimum Inventory levels feeds directly to the factory plan enabling them to meet their service requirements while generating considerably less waste. Inventories have dropped from 4.6m to 3.0m over a 9 month period, and reductions in headcount for both 'office' staff and factory operators have been achieved.

"The factory is not required to have to react to sudden changes in demand as it use to, this has all been accounted for within the system, changes now are minor in nature, which has improved factory efficiency across the board." reports Colin Firth the Factory Manager.

"From a business perspective we are very confident in the results Reflex generates to predict our future requirements, which has improved productivity across all departments and reduced our costs which in turn directly improves our profitability." Rachel Stafford, Supply Chain Executive