The Covid Pandemic scenario introduced an entire new range of security measures and precautions when in-person social interaction takes place. Personal protective equipment (PPE) is now a daily need in both front and back-office operations, and effectively managing its supply to customers, employees and business areas requires a systematic replenishment planning method.
The current context implies that the lack of such goods may result in a limitation of services that can be provided and on the availability of human resources, in the worst case scenario leading to risks to the public health and legal misconduct.
Our client, a large telco company, was challenged with the task of successfully supplying its network of offices, stores, warehouses, and cinemas, as well as all the personnel involved with the operations of the company with PPE.
The first step in creating the supply planning model was to map the entire network, from the supply side related to the PPE types that are required to the demand side linked to the business areas and employees that require such equipment.
The methodology developed is based on the prediction of individuals in each business area and calculates both the equipment needs as well as the consumption of each PPE over a certain time period.
An interactive dashboard was designed to better illustrate and display the trends and demand behavior, allowing the planning team to have both a holistic as well as a detailed view of the network.
The adopted methodology allowed the planning team to have a complete view of the network and to obtain efficiency gains, having shortened the planning time of the supply by about 80%.
The solution’s time to market was considerably quick, benefiting from a very involved team in both the development and deployment phases. Such intense work was crucial to the client, as the fast-paced rhythm in which the legal framework was changing required a flexible and complete tool to ensure that not only were the legal requirements fulfilled, as well as all the business areas were able to serve clients and operate within the new safety standards.
By: Liliana Silva , Pedro Melo , José Queiroga
