Michelin社

Michelin has been a Blue Yonder customer since 2003. However in 2014 Michelin decided to deploy Blue Yonder’s agile implementation approach, which includes a sequence of three-week sprints of designing, constructing, testing and validating the solution. This rapid prototyping methodology enabled the team to learn and mature quickly in their use of the solution while achieving results through each phase of the project, ensuring adoption by the business. A key enabler of this approach was the use of Blue Yonder cloud launch to support rapid deployment and performance testing.

組織およびテクノロジーの導入に加え、Michelin社は、S&OPプロセスおよびS&OP成熟度カーブ上での自社の位置付けに関するギャップ分析を実施しました。各チームは、プロセス上のギャップやデータ整合性の課題を特定し、それらを解消するためのアクションプランを策定しました。その後、行動計画は、組織全体の説明責任を強化するため、月次目標および月次ステータスレビューへと落とし込まれました。同社はまた、Blue YonderのS&OP特別関心グループに参加し、他の顧客の経験やベストプラクティスから学ぶ機会を得ました。

Michelin社は、プロセス、組織、テクノロジーの変革を包含するS&OP変革プロジェクトにおける支援をBlue Yonderに求め、サプライチェーン計画に関する意思決定の高度化と部門横断的な整合性の向上を実現しました。

Blue Yonderの販売および業務計画機能により、Michelinは事業部門のエグゼクティブチーム内で共通の需要、販売、生産計画をより適切に共有し、優先順位を管理することが可能になりました。また、同社は12～18か月間の期間にわたって需要と生産能力のバランスを取ることも可能になります。このプロセスは、戦術的バランシングまたは大まかな生産能力計画とも呼ばれます。

2017年初頭、Michelin社は事業構造を抜本的に見直す再編成の検討を開始しました。Blue Yonder S&OPにおける協働機能は、製造、地域、事業ラインなどの複数の組織が連携し、共通の販売・生産・在庫関する計画を策定することを可能にする中核的な役割を果たし、旧組織から新組織への迅速な変革を実現する主要な推進力の1つとなりました。

2018年1月以降、Michelin社の世界各地における主要な業務は、Blue YonderのS&OP機能とツール導入ロードマップを活用して推進されています。本ソリューションは、ベストプラクティスを共有するための標準化されたプロセスとネットワークを支援するとともに、工場および営業組織に対し、協働のための新たなツールを提供しています。また、単一のデータセットを用いて整合性を確保しながら、地域における需要管理を支援するローカルシミュレーションや、工場におけるキャパシティ管理も可能にしています。

Moving to an end-to-end supply chain solution, globally 

Having used Blue Yonder and a number of legacy applications for many years, in 2019 Michelin decided to deploy one set of Blue Yonder solutions across the entire organization (across all business lines in all regions), supported by new standardized business processes. Deploying Blue Yonder technology as its backbone solution became mandatory for each business line to ensure uniform decision-making and faster monthly consolidations.

Since migrating from a regionally based supply chain supported by fragmented legacy systems to the new Blue Yonder-based global solution it has seen significant improvements. Focused solely on fulfilment, Michelin estimates it has saved about 2 days of inventory by improving daily planning. 

“Having used the Blue Yonder applications for many years, we have a huge understanding of their capabilities and all the many options for parameterization. So, we know that in the Blue Yonder solutions, there are a lot of options to help us fine-tune the processes to address each market segment.” 

Transportation Management Solution reduces CO2 emissions

Another example of success is around the Blue Yonder transport management system (TMS). Michelin has increased the correct loading of trucks by 2%, resulting in significant logistics cost savings and a reduction in CO2 emissions. 

A new segmented supply chain

Around 2024, Michelin recognized its current global supply chain was functioning well but was based on a ‘one size fits all’ design—with the same service offering everywhere for all customers, across all products. This was deemed inadequate to take the company forward in a world where customer demands are changing so quickly. 

“We decided that we needed to adapt. But instead of trying to take the full supply chain design forward, we decided to split this big problem into several smaller problems. We defined our market into product and customer clusters or segments. We defined for each segment of customers a level of service that we wanted to propose.”

Michelin designed the business model around these customer segments, defining the level of ‘cost-to-serve’ and profitability of the different product segments in each case, together with target KPIs for product availability.

Relationship built on trust

“The 25-year relationship between Michelin and Blue Yonder is very healthy, and we have a lot of fun, which is important. But what is key for me is that the relationship is based on trust.  When we trust each other, we can be demanding with each other. And this is what we do.  Although we can be very challenging as a customer, between us, we are constantly striving for new levels of success.”

“The next stage of our journey is a move to SaaS, and we will be doing lots of work with Blue Yonder to help us identify and define the business value of this important migration. This is the next key step in our relationship.”

“Our relationship is in a good place, and we have much work ahead of us. But the nice thing to remind ourselves is that in every delivery of Michelin tires that we do every day, we can see there is a touch from Blue Yonder at every stage of our customer delivery.”