Standardizing Data Across 33 Sites Worldwide: How RS Integrated Supply Helped a Chemical Manufacturer Save Millions

The challenge

A global Fortune 500 company, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, and metals, engaged RS Integrated Supply to cleanse and standardize its maintenance, repair, and spare parts data across its global item master catalog.

The client provided a spreadsheet detailing 562,000 items housed at 33 different sites in four different regions around the world.

The solution

It was a global master data project spanning 17 countries and utilized seven different languages. About 30 percent of the data contained mismatches, or missing product or location information, requiring RS Integrated Supply personnel to go on-site to and conduct physical walk-down inventory of the missing items.

RS Integrated Supply verified more than 200,000 client items. That verification enabled the manufacturer to reduce inventory by more than $1 million after identifying 172,000 line-items with duplicate or obsolete stock numbers and leveraging spend savings by identifying common items across the enterprise.

In addition, that common item identification increased uptime by improving production capacity. Overall, the manufacturers’ technicians spent less time identifying items, increasing productivity and overall wrench time effectiveness. Reaching across the client’s global footprint, the project utilized:

• 305 resources in support of the project
• 199 catalog system enhancements
• 93 workshops / training sessions
• 1,525 trainees enrolled

RS Integrated Supply has the experience and institutional knowledge to lead a global project to enrich MRO data and parts in order to develop a sustainable database. Their project management is excellent, the team is responsive and flexible, and they showed their capability in working through issues unique to specific sites across the globe. They interact directly with the subject matter experts at all global sites providing education, guidance, and encouragement to meet timelines.

The results

RS Integrated Supply delivered more than 10% savings on an annual material spend of $50 million. The company retained RS Integrated Supply to manage its storeroom operations at five sites in the United States and named them Contractor of the Year for Safety, as part of the project.