In early March, major consumer goods company Church & Dwight partnered with Nulogy to speak at the Foundation for Supply Chain Solutions (F4SS) Spring Connect conference in San Antonio, Texas. In front of an audience of CPG supply chain leaders, the session explored how digital transformation drives better visibility and collaboration for consumer goods companies and their supply chain partners—leading to greater network flexibility and resilience.
Presenting on behalf of the two organizations were Nicole Barrick, Director of Global Manufacturing Services, Church & Dwight, and Daisy Jiang, Director of Marketing, Nulogy.
From the session are three takeaways for how digital transformation can enable a more resilient, adaptable supply chain network.
Enable Network Visibility for Greater Responsiveness
Church & Dwight, manufacturer of the Arm & Hammer brand, also manages hundreds of household brands globally, spanning a wide range of product categories, regulatory requirements, and manufacturing processes. Given the massive level of operational complexity, visibility is an issue when collaborating with their myriad supply chain contract manufacturing partners.
“We have done a great job over the years of breaking down the issue of visibility, but the cost has been to our employees’ time in manually managed processes like email and spreadsheets,” Barrick says. “While we were great at it, the accuracy of the data was challenging, and created more complexity in how you flushed out and resolve issues.”
Partnering with Nulogy, one of Church & Dwight’s goals is the mutual sharing of information with their contract manufacturing partners through real-time visibility. “We wanted to enhance our visibility of our suppliers’ production and inventory, while giving visibility to the manufacturer of demand and other C&D data that is relevant to them,” Barrick said. “The major key for us is finding a collaborative solution with partners that allows for interaction and alignment.”
We wanted to enhance our visibility of our suppliers’ production and inventory, while giving visibility to the manufacturer of demand and other C&D data that is relevant to them.
When a consumer brand and its external suppliers are digitalized through a platform like Nulogy, operational data on the shop floor is captured and flows between the supplier and brand, enabling a new level of visibility and trust that sets the stage for clear communication and closer collaboration.
Standardize Collaboration Across the Network
Church & Dwight partners with a wide range of contract manufacturers with heterogeneous workflows, which leads to the issue of reconciling a multitude of software systems across multiple regions within one network.
“In a global company, efforts to centralize systems can be challenging,” Barrick explained. “Couple that with external partners who don’t have any centralization across their networks trying to feed information to you, and the challenge becomes even greater.”
A platform such as Nulogy standardizes data across a brand’s diverse range of supplier processes and systems, enabling the seamless flow of information through a common data platform. The end result: reducing the need to share data and communications outside the system, and instead, being able to update and manage order specs and statuses within a single system that stores PO information and uses audit trails to track collaboration for mutual accountability.
“There is nothing worse than trying to find an email from three months ago about a transactional decision,” Barrick said.
Optimize Operational Performance
Optimizing operational strategies and processes will ensure they are effective, efficient, and adaptable to disruption. How can both brands and suppliers work the best way they can?
Digital transformation offers the opportunity to modernize supply chain workflows and processes for optimal performance. When a supply chain network digitalizes its processes, technology takes over the role of executing the mundane tasks normally conducted by employees manually, freeing staff to focus on forward-thinking solutions, adapt to unexpected disruptions, and ensure continued business success.
Nulogy has been instrumental in enabling our internal teams and co-mans to work better and smarter together.
“This drives the desire to come to work every day because you know you are working towards a long term goal that impacts the company you work for, and shows the value you add to the organization,” Barrick says.
For Barrick, that focus on performance holds true at every level, from internal staff to an external manufacturer’s employees.
“This buy-in drives pride in what people do in both companies.” and benefits for both C&D and their contract manufacturing partners.
We chose Nulogy as our digitization partner to create an environment of collaboration and visibility with our contract manufacturing suppliers.
Barrick concludes, “We chose Nulogy as our digitization partner to create an environment of collaboration and visibility with our contract manufacturing suppliers. Nulogy has been instrumental in enabling our internal teams and co-mans to work better and smarter together, and has given us the visibility into our production and inventory to help us be more responsive to market opportunities.”