Sirius Logistics - Services

Logistics is our business, and we are here to share our experience and knowledge with you. This may involve assisting you to resolve problems or helping you to re-engineer your processes. We will help you identify and reduce waste and improve performance through established techniques.

We really understand how to manage change in a business. Where it is needed we have strong data analysis techniques to interpret what is required and model a better solution. We use our hands on experience to see what is needed and work with your team to coach them so that we leave you with sustainable change and a culture that will equip you for future supply chain challenges.
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Here you will find more information about the services we offer and examples of work we have undertaken for our clients. Please click on a button to find out more.

You have to be able to imagine the best way to deliver your product to your customer and how that should be enabled through your supply chain. The supply chain concepts that will achieve your goals can affect all your business processes or just your distribution strategy. There is no single solution, no 'one size fits all' answer. We have helped companies work out what they need to do whether it is a totally new concept for provision of after-market services or a new transport strategy. We love to be involved in business planning when you are looking to develop your supply chain and will help you determine the best customer focussed logistics strategies.

How do you make sure you give your customers what they want when they want it? The ingredients that will give you the best chance of doing this are fairly straight forward, however deploying them effectively is more tricky! Sales and Operations Planning, Planning and Forecasting, Manufacturing and Supply Systems, Logistics Programming & Production Control and Robust New Model Introduction Methodologies all reside in this area.

Inventory ties up a lot of capital but is also often something that enables a company to provide good customer service. Finding the right balance of stock to minimise inventory cost, optimise customer service and keep materiel moving is inventory management. The key is allowing the supply chain to flow and there are lots of clever calculations to help control and manage this both in safety stock planning and more sophisticated supply chain modelling approaches. There are also methodologies for managing complexity including late configuration or postponement strategies.

The best supply chains are supported by robust infrastructure. It is important to invest in a well located, designed and furnished facility that allows material to flow. Projects can span simple modifications to the way material is presented to a production line through to new warehouse design. All alterations must deliver positive change, improving service, cost and resource utilisation. Employing manufacturing engineering expertise to production line, material feed set ups, storage set ups and distribution approaches makes it possible for added value services to realise their potential.

We all aim for our operations to be efficient and effective. Planning the right level of resources, making sure processes are robust and lean, ensuring that the supply chain is managed with the most up to date methodologies. All these are core operational management issues. The most important thing is to ensure that any change gets the best from the people who enact the processes, and that excellence can be proven through measurement. Operational management is always a challenge, but is ultimately rewarding!

Procurement and supply chain are often treated as separate disciplines. Aligning the two and contracting supply to assure ongoing good supply performance and optimising the supplier - customer relationship is better. Couple this with good supplier management and development practises and supply base performance can be improved with risk reduced. Outsourcing activities is commonplace and the role of external providers is becoming more and more comprehensive; finding contractual frameworks that deliver cost and operationally efficient solutions are essential to developing the supply chain.

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A huge increase in orders and the prediction of a future downturn in the market prompted a large UK aluminium extruder to call in Sirius to help it come up with a supply chain strategy to meet this volatile market. We introduced a Master Production Schedule which accurately forecast sales and ensured that operations would meet demand. As a result, delivery performance immediately improved by 10%, and was on course to improve to 95%. Lead times were also reduced by 50% for core customers. By closing a warehouse and re-tendering warehousing and transport, costs were reduced by more than 14% and service improved by 7%. Finally, outsourcing the management of the aluminium's transport cradles paid for itself within a year, greatly reduced the need to replace lost cradles and improved their availability.

Sirius was able to find huge savings for a major vehicle manufacturer when we were brought into to look at the supply chain. The scope of the project was large, with more than 5,000 live parts with an average stock holding of 1.3 days. We designed and implemented onsite warehouses for our client, replanned the stock holdings of all parts enabling the closure of the offsite distribution centre so reducing costs by about £12million a year. This change affected three vehicle lines in tandem and was effected so as to cause no loss of production and without the need for a factory shutdown.

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When it realised it was failing to support customers' needs, an aerospace forging manufacturer turned to Sirius for help. We took over the management of the operation, introducing performance management, restructuring the operations team, and bringing in rough cut capacity planning, which saw a 15% increase in productivity in the first month alone. Taking a longer term view, we drew up a business improvement plan which covered further reorganisation, the introduction of production planning and control, and material flow improvement. Working with our client, we then came up with a long-term solution - a new factory unit with modern techniques and state-of-the-art forging equipment.

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Sirius worked closely with a niche vehicle manufacturer to improve its logistics performance. Following our business analysis, we came up with a series of projects and worked jointly with the company's own team to implement them. First, we planned and introduced new lineside material layouts to allow the manufacture of a new vehicle. Then we brought in supply chain projects, including supply management, engineering change control, production programming and control, and material flow, while at the same time introducing robust systems and processes to manage ongoing business performance. Finally, we coached the management team, focussing on supplier performance, root cause analysis, problem resolution and third party provider management.

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Sirius were called in by this well known vehicle manufacturer to assist their material planning team. The supply manager and his team needed help and support to eliminate repeated failures in supply. With coaching the team introducing class leading systems and processes and strengthened supply performance by more than 20%. Areas of improvement were; commonisation of scheduling methods, early warning systems to give advance notice of potential failure, introduced systems and processes for monitoring supply performance, increased material visibility lineside, root cause analysis of failure generating improvement actions, improved production planning and better data integrity. The supply manager was coached to improve the poorest suppliers and ensuring accountability and problem solving were embedded into the core way of working.

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A major pharmaceutical company was rationalising it's manufacturing sites. To facilitate this it needed to increase the size of the on-site warehouse at the main production site. Sirius determined that the growth in activity would result in warehouse locations increasing by 30%. A joint working team was created and through a series of practical operational changes and warehouse reconfiguration, the growth was achieved at minimal capital cost. Further site rationalisation was being considered by the client and Sirius offered solutions to increase capacity by a further 20%, although with significant capital investment. Sirius also offered an alternative approach, by implementing best in class inventory management practises the client could reduce their overall inventory by 18% with minimal risk increase and avoid the need to expand the warehouse.

An expanding food retailer was planning to implement a new warehouse to support its phenomenal business growth. Sirius was called in to design the multi channel warehouse and supporting processes. Working together with the retailer's facilities team the project was delivered on time and to cost with huge improvements in material flow and storage capacity. The business is very seasonal and there had previously been issues at peak times with material processing and stock control. Sirius introduced a set of standard processes and supporting skills assessments; specifically designed to induct temporary labour at peak times, and support the different routes the material can take. The infrastructure and methodologies employed have provided a foundation from which the retailer can flex and response to market needs.

Sirius was called in by one of the world's leading aero-engine manufacturers to help improve on-time delivery and reduce operating costs. Our input resulted in warehouse reorganisation which increased capacity by 20% and relocated material closer to its point of use. We also made labour savings of £250k through process re-engineering, where we changed the way material was moved around the factory and through the warehouse. We improved the availability of packaging material from 40% to 85% and successfully reduced subcontract lead times by an average of two days. By introducing Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) - where the packaging supplier manages the stock - the company was confident it carried the correct levels of packaging and saved costs.

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Achieving a 10% reduction in inventory was just one way in which Sirius helped a leading UK aerospace company. We were asked to look at the supply chain for spares for armoured fighting vehicles. By coming up with a unique supply chain model we demonstrated how the company could change the way they ran their supply chain, which meant changing the way they contracted with their suppliers, managed demand and managed their inventory. Tangible results included an improvement in on-time delivery from 40% to 90% and a saving in inventory costs. We also helped the company optimize the use of its ERP. This successful supply chain model has now been rolled out to other areas of the business.

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Sirius was called in to improve the delivery performance of a military spare parts supply chain and - by introducing robust processes and methodologies - we succeeded. We overhauled the forecasting and planning by improving data flows and introducing a monthly planning cycle; at the same time, by making innovations in material management, there was a 30% improvement in planned orders, while customer delivery performance improved to 90-95%. Our intervention resulted in a 20% rise in stock accuracy and an increase in confidence in the system data. Inventory and supply policies were adopted to generate a potential reduction of up to 50% of stock value, using parts categorisation methods and modern buffer stock algorithms. Finally, by bringing in financial planning driven by demand forecasting , the business gained a clear vision of potential spend.

Our client, a manufacturer of military equipment, called in Sirius to project manage the evolution of a procurement approach for service-driven aftermarket contracts, to align the cost and service objectives. We introduced supplier assessment and development strategies for the existing supply base and so were able to ensure that any supply chain risks were understood as well as the capabilities of its suppliers. We also supported procurement by sharing supply chain parts categorisation, which then allowed for a range of purchasing options to be used. This ensured the best supply approach for the type of parts needed and the supplier's ability. By combining a robust scheduling approach for key items with innovative contracting methods, we found opportunities for reducing lead times and so improved the agility and flexibility of the key parts.

A niche automotive manufacturer needed a supply chain strategy put in place to support a 20% increase in volume and, because of the introduction of new models, a 34% increase in parts. Our challenge was to bring in infrastructure that would manage site flow, enable all parts to be fitted lineside and allow for additional parts to be stored. Site flow was improved by creating an additional receiving deck, splitting the flows and introducing a one-way system. We also increased the size of inter-process buffers to allow for shift pattern changes and to improve planned build sequence performance (from 60% to 90%), this also resulted in an overall inventory reduction of £500K. Our recommendation for changes to, and enhancement of the IT system, was adopted. Vehicle flows on and off site were re-planned creating a net increase of only 8%. A new warehouse was brought in, to increase capacity and efficiency. Kitting was increased tenfold while the associated cost only went up 25%. Lineside space was rationalised and the net space gain was over 60%, allowing for better visibility and a more ergonomic workplace for the manufacturing staff. Overall, the new strategy meant the company was able to meet future plans and successfully launch additional models on to the market.