Cost Reductions through Supply Chain Consolidation Knows No Borders

In order to turn a profit in today’s volatile market, businesses are forced to make process changes on a regular basis, be it an expansion or reduction of product manufacturing or a consolidation of operations. A common shortcoming that often accompanies these changes is a disconnected and highly fragmented supplier base. This process imperfection is exacerbated when manufacturers expand into other countries, such as Mexico. In the case of Mexico, for example, this growing trend has resulted in four out of five major U.S. industrial manufacturers establishing some type of presence in the country.

With cost reductions remaining paramount for these ever-adapting manufacturers, consolidation and efficiency within the supply chain is an evident goal that must be reached. This was certainly the case for one U.S.-based manufacturer that recently grew its presence in Mexico, adding to its over 100 production facilities worldwide.

A manufacturer of load centers and other electrical components for use in residential and commercial construction, this company’s production of manufacturing printed production parts was being handled by regional vendors using just-in-time production methods with the inability to store and release most products. This resulted in constant stock-outages which crippled the manufacturer’s business on a weekly basis.

In addition, the company had a highly fragmented supplier base of over 300 printed production parts providers, making it difficult to drive system-wide cost reductions. And with no printed production parts strategy for its seven plants in Mexico, company leadership was forced to institute an initiative to de-fragment its supplier base.

As one of three preferred suppliers to the manufacturer, as well as a true partner with its Mexico operations, Standard Register provided the company with a comprehensive assessment of its manufacturing printed production parts following a thorough discovery process and multiple site assessments.

What Standard Register illustrated was that the issue at hand was more than per-piece price but rather the need for a consolidated, intelligent program to streamline its label acquisition process. To solve this issue, Standard Register used its Manufacturing Parts Solutions and Label Management Inventory System to move the company from hundreds of suppliers to a single printed production parts provider for their operations in the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean.

With Standard Register, this manufacturer continues to benefit from excellent technology solutions as well as year-after-year total cost reductions. The manufacturer credits several factors to this overwhelming success, including:

• The establishment of a true partnership between the two companies
• The creativity and flexibility of the Standard Register account team—the team offered multiple consolidation options, excellent technology solutions and consistent cost reductions
• The ability of Standard Register to execute locally with speed to implementation—the company says that the SR implementations have been their smoothest ever
• Standard Register’s presence in Mexico

If you’d like more information on how your company can consolidate and streamline its printed production parts supply chain in both the United States and Mexico, contact Standard Register today.