Today at SAPPHIRE NOW, Frédéric Plourde, from Cascades Inc. provided a great overview of how the company is transforming their business processes for S&OP.
Who is Cascades?
Cascades is a company that produces, converts, and markets packaging and tissue products composed mainly of recycled fibers. Cascades employs more than 11,000 people in more than 100 operating units in North America and Europe.
Cascades Business Transformation Project
Frédéric explained that Cascades are “becoming a customer-centric and process-driven organization”. This expands across, and incorporates the people, the processes and the technologies.
- People : Design & Implement a Supply Chain structure to support S&OP
- Process : Design & Implement an S&OP process for all Cascades’ SBUs
- Technology : Select & Implement an IT Tool to support the S&OP process
Main Challenges
Frédéric pointed out that supply Chain Management relatively new for Cascades, so initially, before selecting a solution, it was important to increase S&OP comprehension across business leaders in an environment of production driven and decentralized decision making.
At the same time, the need to enhance data quality was identified at the company migrated from a legacy system, toward the SAP ERP solution.
The Transformation Project
The transformation project kicked off in February 2014 by defining the S&OP processes which is seen as a keystone of the supply chain transformation within Cascades.
This was followed with the S&OP process design phase which included the
- Identification of S&OP process at Cascades
- Design of a new S&OP organization, with roles and responsibilities
- Definition of a 2 years Deployment Strategy
- Selection of SAP Integrated Business Planning as the S&OP solution.
The next phase was the S&OP Process Delivery. The first step was to train Cascades leaders on the new S&OP process, before starting the SAP IBP deployment.
The company decided to go live one business unit at a time, with the 1st go live in May 2016. This is to be followed by the next business unit in September. The goal is to complete the S&OP deployment by December 2017.
Key Benefits
Cascades have identified several business benefits. Firstly, SAP Integrated Business planning is very user friendly, with the Excel based interfaces easy to deploy. It is also seen as a scalable solution that will enable Cascades S&OP maturity evolution.
The defined S&OP Process enable the organization to deliver a realistic plan that coordinates all departments’ efforts. Cascades can now link the business plan to the operating plan.
Given the transformation journey that Cascades have taken to bring together processes and technology to drive the S&OP processes, exciting and successful times are undoubtedly ahead for the company.
