Humans at center — how can employees work smarter, not harder?
EY’s knowledge, alliances with SAP and Procter & Gamble, and collaborative approach were crucial differentiators in winning the manufacturing work. EY professionals don’t just bring clients into a room — they walk right onto the shop floor, talk to employees about their day-to-day challenges and work together to develop smart solutions to complex issues.
To set operators and teams up for success, IWS aims to establish a sense of ownership within the workforce. Employees are encouraged to assume responsibility for the equipment they use with the power to perform fixes themselves. IWS helps drive better utilization and increased operating capability through autonomous maintenance. To date, EY professionals have rolled out IWS in almost every manufacturing facility.
Technology at speed — how does one new system trump three old ones?
An element of risk exists in all transformations. To reduce the warehouse engagement risk, EY professionals worked with the client on a controlled transition during the SAP system go-live and hyper-care phases. The volume at the facility was temporarily lessened and shifted to other warehouses, and a ramp-up plan was established in advance, factoring in what’s needed from staffing, assets and change management perspectives.
The EY team delivered a single, global SAP EWM template replacing the three legacy systems, enhancing performance tracking and improving warehouse operations. This fully customized approach streamlined warehouse operations and strengthened packaging production processes, thus giving the beverage company visibility into its warehouse inventory that it had previously lacked. Now, inventory is accurate, and the company is better equipped to meet consumer demand.
Innovation at scale — when robots carry the load, what will you be free to imagine?
To top it off, EY assisted with automating a storage and retrieval system and implementing laser-guided vehicles to handle movement of products within each warehouse. Packing and unpacking systems and process can also be a huge bottleneck. The EY team introduced SAP yard management, a system that allows for better orchestration of loading and unloading product on trailers based on when they arrive at the warehouse and where they need to go. None of this would have been possible with fragmented systems and hasty planning. Together, the newly implemented systems and process allow for a much more streamlined approach to beverage production and distribution.
