Snack Brands Australia, one of the country’s largest suppliers of snack foods, has undergone a supply chain transformation project with RELEX solutions.
Dealing with new product introductions, frequent updates to flavours and packaging, and regular product deletions were constant challenges, while short order lead times, often around 48 hours, added significant pressure to their operations.
The company and RELEX decided to conduct a pilot on one of the key production resources, a fryer, investing considerable time to understand how to utilise the system effectively. They needed to thoroughly grasp each manufacturing operation’s workings and interrelations to accurately define these in their ERP system and drive the RELEX solution effectively.
Successfully doing so unlocked unlimited possibilities for developing planning scenarios and viewing their production from entirely new perspectives. From the start of the pilot to the go-live, the whole process took one year.
Today, RELEX provides up-to-date, optimised production plans every week, covering two factories and twelve separate resource operations. Snack Brands uses RELEX to sequence like products, and products that use the same equipment.
The software also optimises production around shutdowns and planned maintenance to ensure the right amount of stock is built to service customers while these essential works take place.
This represented a fundamental shift from the company’s previous reliance on spreadsheet-based approaches, offering a more advanced and efficient solution for planning and analysis.
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