"Don't tell me, show me" ... please find below a selection of project examples: 

(including personal references of selected DSI family members)

Situation

Decrease of revenue of a manufacturing company and lack of downscaling options led to potential liquidity shortage and chapter-11 risk. Lack of long-term competitiveness because of outdated offering portfolio.

Approach

• Hybrid approach of doing both restructuring and digitalization
• Rigorous management of cash and debts positions
• Management of key stakeholders like financing banks

Results

• Enhancement of (perspective) creditor quota to more than 60 percent 
• Improvement of cost position and Ebitda by more than 15 percent
• Introduction of a digital offering for top-line growth of above 30 percent

Situation

Automotive OEM was performing a cost-cutting program with "Utilities" being one work stream. 35 sites in scope of work with diverse utility supply portfolio.

Approach

• Eight weeks assessment
• Lever identification, high-level business case and feasibility
• Covering demand and supply side

Results

• Cost savings of >100 m€ Ebitda identified
• Feasibility of 70 percent of levers validated
• Starting point for "100-percent green operations" set

Situation

Chemicals player with traditionally strong product and innovation focus, but limited capabilities in supply chain management and logistics. Strong M&A ambition created need to mobilize working capital reserves.

Approach

• Benchmarking of payables, receivables and inventories
• Identification of focus areas or pain points in line with 80:20 rule
• Introduction of new supply chain management tools

Results

• Free up of more than 200 mil. Euro cash reserves, in total
• Every fifth warehouse closed due to consolidation 
• Implementation of new processes and tools to sustain cash position

Situation

OEM for manufacturing equipment with limited margin transparency, strong margin erosion over past years and revenue driven sales approach. Missing tools and capabilities to develop and execute proper pricing strategy.

Approach

• Baselining of as-is profitability on a product level
• Analysis of current costing system including cost drivers and processes associated
• Analysis of willingness to pay of distinctive customer segments
• Development of a new pricing strategy including tool support

Results

• Pricing scheme re-defined with Ebitda upside of >80 m€
• Pricing tools introduced leveraging on AI and machine learning
• Sales representatives mobilised and MBO adjustments performed
• Cost drivers in SAP adjusted

Situation

Silo-ed S&OP process driven by operations showed significant upside in terms of cross-site alignment and forecast accuracy. Demand planning performed in volumes, no -finance-integration.

Approach

• Cross-functional sprints (Sales, Logistics, Operations, Finance ...) for pragmatic baselining and future design
• Inter-disciplinary team to cover business as well as technology issues

Results

• Increase of forecast accuracy of relevant SKU to >90 percent
• Planning cycle times reduced by 60 percent
• Enhanced resource allocation by 32 percent
• Implementation of S&OP in SAP IBP

Situation

A specialty chemicals business was targeting to get digitalised, but struggled to roadmap the way forward and to ensure pay-back in line with CFO expectations.

Approach

• Set up of a TMO (Transformation Management Office) and development of a digital roadmap
• Special focus on monetarization and business case building
• Introduction of an agile working mode

Results

• Clear team structure and governance on digital topics set up
• Draft business case with a focus on quick wins or low hanging fruits of more than 50 mil Euro
• Long list of more than 200 use cases, and prioritised short list based on it

Situation

An ongoing S/4 Hana program at a global Life Science company was not sufficiently progressing and did not meeting business expectations. Missing business case and overall value perspective. Risk of sunk investment in S4 Hana.

Approach

• Pre-project to stock-take and re-design program set up
• Introduction of a value driven approach to S4 Hana as business transformation
• Identification of speed boats and roadmapping, accordingly

Results

• Adjusted program set up as business transformation with business in the driver seat
• Business case of more than 100 mil. Euro addressed
  
• Value driven deployment roadmap introduced

Situation

Global manufactruring player with limited network complexity in the past, but increasing need for network balancing due to China investments. Additionally, lots of opportunities to fix the basics in supply chain.

Approach

• Baselining of current supply chain network and simulations
• Segmentation of the supply chain and introduction of consistent supply chain models including DDMRP on selected sites
• Global re-design of based on network scenarios 

Results

• Release of working capital of more than 100 mil Euro, decrease of delivery cost by 6 percent
• Scalable supply chain network, enhanced resilience and consistent operating rules for make-to-order

Situation

New-build project in the US provided the opportunity to re-define operations processes from scratch.

Approach

• Review of current factory planning
• Identification of future design elements 
• Roadmap for factory-of-the-future  development

Results

• Outline of future factory with more than 50 key design elements
• Investment plan and implementation roadmap
• Buy-in of key stakeholders

Situation

Production assets of a Chemicals company seek for the next level of productivity. How to make use of digitalization while sensoring is nothing new to continuous production in Process Industries?

Approach

• Site visits and brainstorming sessions to identify and prioritise use cases (e.g. integrated planning)
• Simultaneous building of reference architecture and architecture cuts for prioritised use cases
• Agile implementation

Results

• Use case library drafted and launched for roll-out at further sites
• OEE enhancements of more than 2.5 percent at selected sites
• Avoidance of sunk cost due to inconsistent architecture