Pfizer maintains spares control despite disruptive growth

Challenge

For most people, Pfizer is synonymous to fighting and ending the global COVID pandemic. Needless to say, a rapid scale-up was needed to satisfy global demand. Pfizer has multiple factories, one of these is in Puurs, Belgium in Europe. They have a strong desire to control growth – also in terms of spares – and requested Gordian to develop an agile spares strategy. Pfizer requested Gordian to analyse the growth of spare parts inventory and the required space in the warehouse. The main question was: “Does Pfizer need to expand the warehouse space or not? A blend of Gordian consultants was deployed by making use of data, optimization tools and business knowledge of Pfizer.

Result

Current warehouse can be utilised longer

With the anticipated growth and demand, there was a continuous need to expand the facilities and the warehouse was the main focus for expansion. We proved that with proper spares and space optimisation, the decision to expand could be postponed.

The developed agile inventory strategy was very much a co-production. By doing so, we were not only able to define the future state of spares management at Pfizer; we also defined a realistic roadmap leading to that envisioned end-state.

Jos Maes

Teamlead Warehousing

Approach

Let’s start with some facts

We started with combining data science with business knowledge. By smartly slicing and dicing on the one hand and challenging these results on the other hand, an interesting potential for improvement was identified. The spares availability could increase while at the same time reducing working capital. In other words, achieving a satisfied maintenance department and financial controller.

Spares optimisation is not just a mathematical exercise. The success of such a program heavily depends on proper input such as master data and maintenance plans. Again, due to disruptive growth, the phase-in process of parts was extremely challenging. Hence, these areas also needed proportional attention.

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Jan Willem Rustenburg