How Arxada’s chemical supply chain planning transformation paid off

As the building blocks of our economy, chemicals present unique complications in supply chains, governed by a thicket of regulations regarding how they must be traced, stored and moved. The unique demands of the chemical supply chain requires leading-edge capabilities to address them.

Demand volatility, economic uncertainty and inventory management rank among the dominant concerns in chemicals, as they are so far upstream in most supply chains. The penalties for overproduction are enormous: Some chemicals must be kept strictly segregated from others, eating up warehouse space, and they can become more dangerous as they age, adding safety and regulatory consequences.

Arxada and EY US took a rapid but disciplined approach, developing a clear supply chain transformation roadmap up front so that investments were tightly aligned to business outcomes. Acknowledging that technology is only part of a transformation, this roadmap prioritized people and processes.

EY.ai Value Blueprints offers a comprehensive approach to technology, suggesting that process redesign and improvements provide lasting impact on transformation efforts by giving organizations the foundation needed to eventually scale outcomes.

“A bad process beats a good person every single time, so we spent a lot of time understanding our processes and understanding how we wanted them to run,” Willis said.

OMP, an EY ecosystem partner, provided the technology platform. It’s a solution that connects all supply chain planning functions, horizons and roles and integrates planning cycles and workflows, based on one version of the truth. It also features autonomous planning, smart analytics, simulations and what-if scenarios to speed up decision-making — yielding enormous improvements for supply chain planners who lacked end-to-end supply chain visibility and other advanced tools.

Structured workshops that save time and effort

First, EY US replaced the traditional OMP design phases with structured workshops focused on understanding and adopting leading practices. With an eye on the clock, these workshops were held virtually. “We didn’t have people flying all over the world every single week to deploy a tool,” Willis noted. This operationalized the standard OMP template for the chemicals sector with a fit-to-standard delivery, avoiding unnecessary and time-consuming customization.

“It helped us identify the most important scope elements for Arxada on the horizon that will deliver the most value and return on investment quickest and really going for those, and ultimately mapping out the subsequent phases from there,” said Bryan Garland, Business Development Manager at OMP.

Proven accelerators and change management by design

To further reduce both the timeline and the cost, the EY team added delivery accelerators into the mix, across data, testing, training and deployment. The program followed a delivery approach that was agile and sprint-based. Each sprint embedded configuration, data validation, testing and business feedback, allowing progress to be measured in weeks, not quarters.

Just as importantly, the EY team embedded change management from Day One. Given the accelerated pace, adoption could not be an afterthought. Key users were identified early, involved throughout the journey and developed into internal OMP champions, laying the foundation to make the solution sustainable over the long term.

“We identified those key change agents and built out a ‘day in the life’ for employees anchored on leading-practice processes, which was critical,” said Claudia Bueno, EY Global OMP Alliance Go-to-Market Leader.

Results within months, not years

Within four months, volume planning and detailed scheduling in OMP went live at Arxada. And at six months, an additional sprint enabled visibility across the value stream before go-live for the full business.

Then the program transitioned to a managed support mode, keeping EY professionals engaged in system monitoring and issue resolution. Arxada’s internal team could focus on continuous improvement and future rollouts rather than day-to-day firefighting. And already they are watching the value roll in.

Arxada’s journey demonstrates that advanced planning transformations do not have to be slow, complex or prohibitively expensive thanks to industry-proven templates and a disciplined fit-to-standard delivery.

“Arxada, EY US and OMP worked as one team,” Willis said. “Within the first year of OMP’s implementation, Arxada gained two to three times as much as it invested in the year of the implementation, generating positive cash flow.”