Better Material Availability, Better Work-Life Balance

Siemens' medium voltage switchgear facility in Querétaro, Mexico faced critical challenges with material availability and buyer productivity. With a willingness to customize products for every customer request, the facility manages 74,000 active purchase parts and 196,000 active make parts. After implementing APEX, the facility achieved dramatic improvements: a 10% increase in material availability, strategic rightsizing inventory to support growth, and 80 hours per week saved for the materials management team, all while improving work-life balance for their procurement team.

The Challenge

Operating in a complex make-to-order environment, Siemens Querétaro faced mounting pressure across their materials management operations. The team needed to balance conflicting priorities: maintaining high material availability to meet customer commitments while optimizing inventory levels and preventing team burnout. These competing demands required a radical new approach.

Three Critical Goals:

1. Material Availability: Achieve 95% material availability at assembly start

2. Inventory Optimization: Optimize inventory to achieve a target of 6 turns

3. Team Productivity: Decrease materials management workload by 25% to relieve buyer burnout

The Complexity Challenge

"We are people pleasers, we say yes to everything our customers request. But, this makes our operations super complex."- Rodolfo MacKinney

The Siemens team was facing challenges around excessive manual workload leading to buyer burnout. With buyers spending 3-4 hours weekly preparing inventory reports and relying heavily on Excel spreadsheets to drive all decisions, the team was working grueling 7 AM to 7 PM schedules, skipping lunch breaks, and even coming in on Saturdays. Material availability remained below target, unable to reach the 95% goal with existing tools, while lengthy 2-2.5 hour weekly inventory review meetings delivered inconsistent accuracy. Adding to the complexity, the lack of standardization across the 16-buyer team meant processes varied significantly, making collaboration and efficiency gains nearly impossible.

"The business case was to have 95% material availability. And with the current tools that we had, we weren't achieving it. We need to do something different. We need to go for something radical."- Rodolfo MacKinney

The Turning Point

The Siemens team was looking for a solution to better scale their time and automate their processes. Rodolfo attended LeanDNA’s Manufacturing Excellence Summit, an annual event for top supply chain professionals in discrete manufacturing. He discovered the Siemens team was not alone in their challenges, and found APEX by LeanDNA could be the solution they were looking for to digitally transform their supply chain operations. They chose to partner with LeanDNA to implement APEX into their factory operations. 

Implementation Strategy

The Siemens team built their implementation on four foundational pillars:

1. Quick Wins & Building Momentum: Focused on immediate, visible improvements to build team confidence and engagement.

2. Standardized Way of Working: Created consistent processes across all buyers to improve efficiency and collaboration.

3. Change in Mindset for Material Master Data: Shifted from reactive firefighting to proactive data management using APEX's planning health parameters.

4. Eliminate Excel Reports: Replaced manual spreadsheets with real-time APEX reporting and analytics.

Rather than forcing adoption, the team identified buyers experiencing the most pain and positioned APEX as a solution to their specific problems:

• Team members working excessive hours (7 AM to 7 PM)

• Buyers skipping lunch breaks and working Saturdays

• Those seeking relief and better tools

Strong backing from top management combined with a gradual, benefit-focused rollout created the right environment for adoption without resistance.

Measurable Impact

10% increase in material availability: Moving steadily toward the ambitious 95% target with continued improvement trajectory.

"If we talk about measurable results, we have increased 10% of our material availability since we started implementing APEX."- Rodolfo MacKinney

Significant inventory investment: Rather than simply cutting inventory, APEX provided clarity on the right level to support growth.

"We actually increased inventory and APEX gave us a very clear explanation of why we needed to increase inventory. We want to have more revenue, we want to be growing. Therefore, we needed to increase our inventory and with APEX we had a really easy explanation that we needed more inventory."- Rodolfo MacKinney

80 hours per week saved: Materials management team freed from manual reporting and analysis work, saving significant team each week, and providing a better work life balance

Beyond the Metrics: A People-First Impact 

The impact extended far beyond operational metrics to transform the daily lives of the procurement team. Buyers are now leaving work on time, giving them the opportunity to engage in sports and family activities that were previously impossible. The team has eliminated weekend work entirely, and lunch breaks have been restored as a regular part of the workday. These changes have created a noticeable increase in team morale, with employees feeling more energized and engaged in their roles.

"Right now they are starting to have more life balance... they can go early. They can do some sports, spend time with their families. So it's also impacting lives."- Rodolfo MacKinney

Looking Forward

As they continue progressing toward their ultimate goal of complete material availability while maintaining optimized inventory levels and high team morale, the team remains enthusiastic about future possibilities. They are particularly excited about upcoming APEX features, including advanced AI capabilities that Rodolfo describes as "a game changer."

Siemens Querétaro's APEX implementation demonstrates how the right tools can transform not just operational metrics, but the daily lives of the people doing the work. What began as a feeling of isolation in their complex environment transformed into a success story of standardization and continuous improvement.

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