thyssenkrupp Materials Services: Control Tower ensures greater supply chain flexibility and resilience

The intelligent control of material flows has become an enormously demanding task. In response to this situation, thyssenkrupp Materials Processing Europe is expanding its range of services to include "Control Tower": a complete package for coordinating the entire supply chain. At its core is a data dashboard that provides an overview of planning and call-off data for the customer and its various suppliers at all times.

A globally ramified network of production sites on the one hand and ever more finely staggered supplier relationships on the other add up to significantly more complex logistics in the supply chain. Forecasts of material requirements can be outdated within a very short time, as demand changes abruptly or other imponderables arise: material bottlenecks, problems with transport and logistics, delivery problems on the part of suppliers – to name just the best known.

"The key to stable and efficient supply flows is the bundling and integration of data," explains Thomas Wölk, Head of Business Development at thyssenkrupp Materials Processing Europe. "With our Control Tower, we offer a complete package that enables optimal coordination of supply flows." As with the Control Tower at the airport, all the information flows together in one place, on the dashboard: "On the one hand, we get a lot of data from our customers, such as call-off data and quotas at the supply plants. On the other hand, we have an overview of the entire supply chain in terms of adherence to delivery dates, quality monitoring, acceptance behavior and forecasting of the various plants and suppliers. This enables us to react at an early stage and find alternatives if, for example, a supplier of input materials shows bottlenecks," explains Wölk.

The Service Control Tower is a further important element in the strategic development of "Materials as a Service", with which the holding company thyssenkrupp Materials Services is systematically expanding its supply chain service business. "We are experiencing an increasingly challenging and disruption- prone market environment. Control Tower enables us to work dynamically and intelligently with customers and partners in a network to remain resilient and adaptable and mitigate supply chain risks," says Ilse Henne, Chief Transformation Officer of thyssenkrupp Materials Services.

Control from a single source with sustainable effects

The entire materials procurement process is managed from a single source. In addition to the coordination of supply flows, the range of services includes just-in-time, i.e. on-time delivery, so that lower storage costs are incurred and starting material can be processed flexibly and yet with optimum scrap. Processing and compliance with quality standards are also included.

Another advantage is that the smallest quantities can be grouped together, enabling customers to plan more in line with demand and thus avoid tying up a lot of capital. The bundling of quantities in outbound shipping also saves transport and reduces the carbon footprint – as a result, fewer trucks leave the plants, albeit fully utilized. For incoming goods, thyssenkrupp relies on the resource-saving combination of road, rail and ship. The service has already proven itself in practice. "We've had very good experience with initial customers," says Adrian Brendel, Stainless Steel Sales Team Leader at thyssenkrupp Materials Processing Europe.

thyssenkrupp Materials Services at Blechexpo 2021

These and other solutions will be presented by thyssenkrupp Materials Processing Europe at Blechexpo in Stuttgart from October 26 to 29, 2021. We look forward to seeing you in hall 10, booth 10407.

About thyssenkrupp Materials Services

With around 480 locations – 271 of them warehousing locations – in over 40 countries, thyssenkrupp Materials Services is the biggest mill-independent materials distributor & service provider in the Western world. The wide-ranging capabilities offered by the materials experts enable customers to concentrate more on their individual core business and span two strategic areas: global materials distribution as a one-stop-shop – from steel, tubes and pipes, nonferrous metals and specialty materials to plastics and raw materials – and tailored services in the areas of materials management and supply chain management. An extensive omni-channel architecture offers 250,000 customers worldwide round-the- clock access to more than 150,000 products and services. A high-performance logistics system ensures that all deliveries are integrated smoothly into customer production processes on a just-in-time or just- in-sequence basis.