Billerud is a global leader in high-performance paper and packaging materials. Serving customers in over 100 countries, they operate nine state-of-the-art production facilities across the USA, Sweden, and Finland.
Founded in 2012, Billerud has grown to 5,800 employees, achieving net sales of $3.7 billion. With customer service centers in 16 markets, they are committed to empowering businesses worldwide with sustainable packaging solutions.
Before:
Difficulty in Ensuring Timely and Accurate Monthly Cycles
Billerud had deployed Anaplan but faced challenges in stabilizing and streamlining their planning processes. Following transitions in key roles within the organization, the bulk of managing the system fell on one SME. The team was working through 55-60 manual steps to complete their monthly cycle. Communication between the S&OP and demand planning functions was also a complex task, particularly as inconsistencies in master data emerged.
The need for accurate data and timely execution of the S&OE process was critical for business continuity. As the business expanded during the pandemic, it became clear that Billerud’s existing processes needed greater efficiency and data integrity. They needed an automated, scalable solution to meet their growing operational demands.
Billerud partnered with Spaulding Ridge for their expertise and guidance, seeking a collaborative approach to address these hurdles and establish a robust, semi-automated system.
Solution:
Phase-Wise Implementation for Enhanced Forecasting and Efficiency
Phase 1: Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)
Spaulding Ridge started by addressing Billerud’s challenges in scenario planning and optimizing operations. Billerud wanted to be able to manage fluctuating costs of raw materials such as pulp and to evaluate the impact of cost changes on inventory decisions.
To tackle this, we introduced a period product mix optimizer. The optimizer has allowed Billerud to make strategic decisions to manage the company’s supply demand balance that has driven increased profitability. In addition, Billerud has been a better partner with its suppliers due to improved long term visibility of raw material requirements
Additionally, the optimizer provided flexibility for scenario analysis. It allowed Billerud to test the impact of changes in raw material costs, model price strategies, and evaluate demand scenarios. The optimizer also offered faster performance, delivering results in under 10 minutes compared to the previous solution’s 30-minute runtime, all while maintaining the flexibility to adapt to future business complexities. Since any implementation’s success ultimately depends on user adoption, we held training sessions post implementation to ensure that they could independently manage and refine the optimizer as the business needed.
Phase 2: Demand Planning
In phase two, the focus shifted to demand forecasting, where Billerud sought to move away from their current demand planning technology, which was no longer meeting their business requirements.
We implemented a new demand planning solution that provided a faster forecasting model capable of projecting demand for the next 18 months based on two years of historical data. Using moving averages and weighted moving averages, the system delivered reliable forecasts that integrated seamlessly with the S&OP model established in phase one.
To ensure consistency between the two models, we helped Billerud implement a master data management system for transactional data. Initially, Billerud relied solely on transactional data for planning, which caused inconsistencies and inefficiencies. By implementing a proper master data framework, we ensured that data was structured, consistent, and easily accessible, enabling smoother integration and accurate reporting across systems.
The implementation also introduced a high degree of flexibility and user accessibility. Sales representatives could drill down to specific regions, customers, and forecast levels, and they were empowered to override forecasted values dynamically to account for seasonality or unexpected changes in demand. These overrides were automatically updated across all relevant levels, streamlining collaboration between sales and manufacturing teams.
This enhanced visibility and collaboration allowed sales reps to better understand customer buying patterns and communicate forecast changes to manufacturing. As a result, the manufacturing team could proactively plan production to meet demand spikes, leading to improved operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
After:
Enhanced Strategic Decisions and Faster Process Time
After implementing the solution, Billerud saw significant improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and decision-making capabilities. Billerud’s streamlined processes and enhanced data management capabilities allowed the team to work faster and more effectively, freeing up resources for strategic tasks and better operational planning. Key outcomes from our work together included:
- Time Savings: Reduced monthly tasks from 55-60 to 30 automated steps, cutting down process time from multiple days to half a day.
- Reduced Human Error: Automation and simplified processes minimized errors, ensuring greater accuracy and efficiency.
- Empowered End Users: The end users gained confidence in the system and can now independently resolve issues and train new team members.
- Improved Workflow: Simplified processes can now be handed off to coworkers with confidence, ensuring smooth execution.
- Increased Analytical Capacity: Billerud can now focus on more analytical tasks such as creating production schedules and sourcing raw materials. They can also easily identify less profitable areas and then cut costs/increase prices accordingly.
- Enhanced Decision-Making: Billerud’s S&OP data provides a unified forecast and production plan, enabling better decisions around capacity, cost-cutting, and pricing. S&OP data provides the “one plan” for business forecast and production plans.
- Greater Operational Flexibility: With improved forecasting, Billerud can identify capacity shortages and optimize operations by adjusting strategies in real-time.
“Spaulding Ridge was a very good partner in Billerud’s S&OP endeavor, they’ve worked with us to develop a solution through their experience and enabled us to execute the vision that we had for Anaplan within the structure of Billerud. The quality of support and level of caring for our business is noted – you care about us being successful.”
