Ryerson-The Strength of Metal is a leading distributor and processor of metals in North America. Headquartered in Chicago, they operate service centers in cities across the United States and Canada and serve an expanding international customer base through joint ventures in India and China. Ryerson offers an unparalleled range of products, leading processing and fabricating capabilities, a broad geographic reach, and an established commitment to superior service.

CHALLENGES

• Inventory averages were higher than needed creating large amounts of dead stock.
• Customer service levels were challenged due to stock-outs and unreliable lead times.
• Lack of trust in the system caused high manual activity and users working outside the system.
• Business rules and master data did not align with current procurement functions.
• Inaccuracies in forecasts due to a rapidly changing marketplace.

SOLUTIONS

• Ryerson engaged Reveal in an oVo® inventory reduction and optimization project.
• Educated Buyers & Managers on valuable SAP tools to uncover, analyze, and pro-actively manage inventory and service levels.
• Assisted in using standard SAP tools to analyze the slow-moving stock, dead stock, high range of coverage, and stocks outs.
• Aligned with the organization around best practices to provide sustainable inventory management strategies.
• Unpacked business issues that attributed to inventory and customer service issues relating to, outdated Information, user behavior, business rules, and configuration issues.
• Implemented new MRP strategies and analysis methods to drive inventories down.

BENEFITS

• Inventory reduction of over 22%
• Reduction in exceptions of over 30%
• Customer Service Improvement over 20%
• Simplification and standardization of procurement process
• Alignment of KPI’s to business objectives

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