Plastics & Packaging
Bins refilled before anyone has to ask
A plastics processor was raising a constant stream of low value purchase orders for consumables. Vendor managed inventory moved replenishment to Rowlec and gave procurement its week back.
What changed
Zero
Purchase orders raised by the customer for programme lines
One invoice
Consolidated billing in place of a stream of low value orders
Standardised
Glove and abrasive ranges reduced to a common site range
We keep our customers anonymous, so sites are described by sector and region rather than by name. Every figure and outcome on this page is as reported to us by the customer, not measured independently by Rowlec.
The full story
What happened
and what we did.
- The site
- Injection moulding and extrusion running near enough continuously
- Where it started
- A small procurement team raising the same low value orders weekly
- What was at stake
- Buyers tied up in admin while the floor ran out of consumables
The challenge
Injection moulding and extrusion running near enough continuously, with a small procurement team handling everything from tooling to hydraulic hose. The bulk of their workload was not strategic buying, it was raising low value orders for the same items week after week: nitrile gloves, cutting discs, thread lock, hose tails, terminal blocks. Each one still needed a requisition, an approval, a goods in receipt and an invoice match. Meanwhile the shop floor kept running out of things nobody had thought to reorder, because the trigger for reordering was somebody noticing an empty box.
Our approach
Rowlec analysed twelve months of purchase history to separate the genuine repeat lines from the noise, then built a vendor managed inventory programme around them. Two bin Kanban was fitted at the moulding cells and the extrusion end, with every location labelled and given a min and max level tied to real consumption. Rowlec scans the bins on an agreed visit cycle, replenishes to level and invoices on a single consolidated line. Nothing is ordered by the customer. Levels are reviewed quarterly against usage so the programme follows demand rather than lagging behind it.
The outcome
Procurement no longer raises orders for the lines covered by the programme, and the administrative work behind them has gone with it. The team told us the time released has moved onto supplier negotiation and tooling projects that had been sitting untouched. On the floor, the two bin system means an empty bin is a signal rather than a problem, because the replacement bin is already in place. Standardising on fewer glove and abrasive lines cut the number of part numbers the site carries and made it easier to buy the right thing.
The bins are always full and nobody raises a requisition for gloves any more. That sounds small until you count the hours it used to eat.
What we used
The solutions behind this.
Vendor Managed Inventory
You stop raising orders for consumables. We scan, replenish and invoice, so the bin is full when your fitters reach for it.
Read moreInventory Management
We put structure behind your stores so the right part is there in the right quantity, without tying up cash.
Read moreEngineering Support
Technical help with specifying, standardising and sourcing, from people who have spent their careers around plant.
Read moreKeep reading
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