Editor’s note: Tamer Group is the winner of the 2022 ASCM Award of Excellence — Learning and Development. This award recognizes an organization’s commitment to productivity and advancement based on the effective and ongoing application of educational concepts, competencies and best practices from ASCM performance-driven team training and the APICS body of knowledge. Learn more about the ASCM Awards of Excellence.

After 100 years in business, Saudia Arabian health care company Tamer Group has the wisdom to know the power of continuous learning and growth. Over the year, the business has expanded to include multiple subsidiaries, including four major supply chain companies that cover a network of health care, pharmaceutical manufacturing, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), e-commerce and third-party logistics operations. This added complexity created new challenges and enhanced the need for transformation.

Additionally, there were varying supply chain cultures and maturity levels among the parent organization and its subsidiaries, which led to communication challenges and operational disconnects. Leaders realized they needed to get everyone on the same page. Meanwhile, the company was grappling with inventory issues, low forecast accuracy, low synergy, and a lack of communication among the supply chain team and other internal stakeholders. All of this ultimately caused a higher level of inventory than necessary. Solving these problems would require high-level supply chain knowledge and technical supply chain skills, including the ability to leverage new technologies.

So Tamer Group leaders decided to focus their efforts on two key areas: operations and people. The main operational challenges included improving core supply chain distribution and logistics business to stay ahead of the competition and be more attractive to both suppliers and customers, as well as adding a proper sales and operations planning (S&OP) process.

Tamer Group chose to partner with ASCM and its Middle Eastern partner Muhakat to leverage educational opportunities that would enable them to meet all of these objectives. “ASCM is a well-known supply chain organization that assists businesses in reaching their objectives and improving their results,” says Abdulrahman Saad, group supply chain excellence manager. We worked together to achieve supply chain excellence.”

Amr El-Mansoury, group chief supply chain officer, says investing in employee education helped the organization achieve excellence as an employer: “In order to maintain our leadership, we must constantly progress. Our primary focus has been on people development, which we have taken to the next level. We know how ambitious our fresh graduates are about development, and our goal is to become the employer of choice. Furthermore, we recognize that our team's skills and capabilities will help us succeed and rise above our competitors.”  

Seizing all opportunities
 
Tamer Group’s transformation journey officially started in December 2020 when the organization identified its strategic supply chain pillars — people, cost, planning, service and excellence — and refreshed the key performance indicators (KPIs) within each pillar that needed attention. Soon after, it became an ASCM corporate member.

At the start of the educational program, Tamer Group leaders had to figure out how to manage and track the program internally. “Initially, it appeared that we were establishing a small division within our learning and development department that would be managed by the supply chain excellence team, which could be perceived as unnecessary and result in redundancy if not properly aligned,” Saad explains. “However, we made it clear that ASCM will provide us with more than just training. There are several strategic programs and assessments that are an integral part of our supply chain strategic three-year plan.”

The company participated in a litany of ASCM educational offerings, including:

• APICS Certified in Logistics, Transportation and Distribution training for the Tamer Health Care subsidiary team
• Supply Chain Operations Reference-Professional (SCOR-P) training for mixed supply chain members from all over the organization
• S&OP and forecasting training
• Various modules in the Foundations of Supply Chain Management (FOSCM) series, including courses about supply chain management for sale teams and supply chain teams, demand planning and forecasting, and logistics management
• Public APICS Certified in Planning and Inventory Management; Certified Supply Chain Professional; and Certified in Logistics, Transportation and Distribution classes.

Through its corporate membership, Tamer Group also leveraged additional ASCM resources to activate key actions and projects, such as SCOR benchmarking; a Digital Capabilities assessment; and the pursuit of the ASCM Enterprise Certification for Sustainability, which should be complete in the first half of 2023.

“The best attribute of ASCM’s APICS education is its practicality and application at workplace,” El-Mansoury says. “Since we have started using APICS material, we have created a culture of improvement in human capital, and we have created a shift toward modern supply chain thinking.”

Team improvements

Supply chain managers throughout the organization report that they have seen improvements among their teams and related operations after participating in ASCM educational programs. “The curriculum of APICS certifications is providing insightful, in-depth, detailed, structured information that sets our execution in a clear context toward better and greater value,” says Oday Al-Bashir, FMCG supply chain director. “The implementation of the best practices [and knowledge gained] by studying the material has helped our team to think more strategically and operate more optimally toward greater business optimization and higher value generation.”

Yzeed Abo-Alola, health care supply chain excellence manager, adds that the APICS curriculum has helped create a more well-rounded working environment and culture because it covers every aspect of the organization’s supply chain needs. Abo-Alola’s team members could clearly see that APICS education would provide the structure, skills and knowledge for the organization to reach its supply chain goals, he says.

Health Care Supply Chain Manager Ahmad Bansunbol adds that SCOR-P training and benchmarking in particular gave the company a critical framework for supply chain success: “The journey gave us a broader picture of our performance compared with competitors in the same industry. It also equipped us with tools to prioritize and focus our efforts on a couple of supply chain performance attributes that will reflect positively on the customer experience and the return on investment.”

Knowledge at work

After ASCM training and education, the various Tamer Group teams now are collaborating and working like a well-oiled machine. “The education helped in creating a cross-functional approach in supply chain, meaning that our departments are no longer working in silos and instead are making decisions as an integrated supply chain,” El-Mansoury says. “Plus, the sales team now understands the real impact of their orders, forecast accuracy and inventory planning, which helps us realize cost savings and increased service levels.”

To date, 20 employees have achieved at least one APICS certification. Plus, leaders have identified opportunities for teams to keep learning and improving. “The SCOR training was an eye-opener about supply chain excellence,” El-Mansoury says. The company has completed its SCOR benchmarking process and now is working through a transformation learning program. “This will ensure that we have a well-developed excellence team capable of managing the implementation of any development plans,” he says.

Already, the teams have put into action what they have learned about operational excellence to achieve multiple KPI improvements. “The CLTD training had amazing information about network design,” El-Mansoury recounts. “The management tied the learning to multiple projects to realize a return on investment from the education.”

So far, the benefits of applying CLTD knowledge have included:

• Reduction in cold-chain losses after reengineering cold-chain handling and digitizing and improving temperature systems
• Improvement in fleet use after implementing a proper structure and a last-mile delivery system that monitors drivers’ activities during their journeys and collaborates with customers
• A yearly savings of 2 million Saudi riyals after converting a warehouse facility to a purely stockless depot leveraging a cross-dock model
• Shorter delivery times to key customers by 50% as a result of segmenting by ABC customer classification
• A 50% reduction in its delivery refusal rate, from 5% to 2.5%
• More precise fulfillment based on the SCOR model.

The organization also achieved its goal of implementing an S&OP program. The monthly meeting cadence has improved cross-functional collaboration and helped the company to ensure product availability and maintain healthy inventory levels.

But the most valuable benefit is related to culture. “This transformation has had a positive impact on employee engagement, talent retention, performance awareness, and our commitment to sustainability and monitoring our environmental impact,” Saad says. Teams now have the knowledge and skills to drive transformations within the business and keep the organization competitive throughout the coming years.

Call for entries for the 2023 ASCM Awards of Excellence is now open. Nominate an exceptional organization or individual in supply chain today!