Crouzet bets on Colibri for its sales forecasts
InnoVista Sensors, founded in 1921 and based in Valencia, is the leader in the design and manufacture of components for automated systems.
Present in more than 140 countries, InnoVista has five production sites (in France, Morocco and China) and more than 1,300 employees. In a very competitive context, it was important for Crouzet to find a tool that can follow and support its Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP) process and promote collaboration between its logistics teams and its large international sales network.
Why make forecasts?
For Crouzet, an industrial company, the challenges are linked to the strengthening of the agility of its Supply Chain by quickly adapting the capacity of workshops and upstream logistics. The aim is to respond more and more to a very wide and diversified customer demand in a shorter and shorter timeframe.
“Today in our highly volatile environments, we need to plan for the longer term, so we have to make forecasts, anticipate, to not suffer any more,” explains Camille Lodieu, Logistic project manager for Crouzet.
Why turn to a market solution? Why Colibri?
The question of a new sales forecasting tool was raised for Crouzet when an ERP change project was put in place.
In addition, with sales teams located in Europe, Asia and the United States, it was important to have a simpler and collaborative tool. Needs not met by the Excel tool, previously used.
“What seduced us in Colibri is its modernity. A collaborative tool, very ergonomic with multiple functionalities, unlike the very heavy Excel tool used for about fifteen years” develops Camille Lodieu.
“We have had an excellent relationship with Colibri who has accompanied us on a daily basis in the pre-production base but also during the launch, deployment and construction of the dashboards.”
The first feedback on the solution
In general, Crouzet teams welcomed the ergonomics of the solution with a great enthusiasm.
“Colibri is above all a support for a new way of working on forecasts and brings material to recurring discussions and meetings over a monthly cycle,” explains Camille Lodieu.
Today the demand review has become a ritual at Crouzet with, as a support, the dashboards of Colibri. In addition, a regular and constructive exchange with the sales teams took place. “We are now working hand-in-hand, with Colibri’s ability to share responsibility and work in a closed loop, to discuss with some of our major customers about the reliability of their forecasts and to move forward together to enable them to have a better service rate,” Camille concludes.
What’s next?
The Go Life Colibri took place last March. We are still in a phase of increased competence in relation to the tool ability to use and its interaction with the ERP to realize its full potential. The next step will be to work on optimizing stock levels and to quantify the beneficial effect of the forecast.
“We also want to use Colibri to analyze and improve our DIN (day of inventory),” explains Camille Lodieu.
The highlights of Colibri according to Crouzet:
- A modern and intuitive tool
- Collaborative mode
- A tool that constantly evolves
- Graphic Mode, Reliability / Stability Indicators
- SaaS mode
- A privileged contact with Colibri teams
- A flexible tool that can adapt to specificities (6 activities, 8000 references, management by family and product)
Crouzet’s tips for Implementing Colibri:
- Work several months upstream of pre-production deployment to refine the structure of the tool
- Create business-specific operating procedures
- Define dedicated IT support for the project if an interface with the ERP is required.
Interview of Camille Lodieu about the Colibri implementation at Crouzet.
Vidéo in French. Subtitles in French and English.
