Improving here first, and then in Germany

It came as no surprise that gas company Westfalen asked Henk Kolenbrander to work on improving their Dutch supply chain. With over 25 years of experience at an industry partner of Westfalen, he was the man for this job. It also led to subsequent assignments for Henk in Germany.

‘You know how the market works, know all bottlenecks, all jargon. When you return to your old sector after 2,5 years, you can dive right in, which is then also what is expected from you. I could for example, before anyone saw this coming, advise to slash the budget for new gas cylinders in half. This did surprise them a bit.’

Hazardous substances
‘The gas industry has very specific supply chains for bulk and cylinders, because you are working with hazardous substances. I have also worked as a safety and quality manager (Q&HSE), so this isn’t just something theoretical for me, it is in my blood. People noticed that right away, whether I was having a meeting in the board room or was packed in PPE, standing between the cylinders. And even then, things don’t always happen automatically…’

Implementing SAP
‘Like everywhere else, I occasionally heard “But we are used to…”, and you need to break those patterns. Another hurdle: halfway through, another project interfered, with the large-scale implementation of SAP. All energy had to be devoted to this and the supply chain project was put on hold. Luckily my previous employer also worked with SAP, so I could quickly contribute to this project too.’

Projects in Germany
Through these projects Henk came in contact with the logistics team at the head office, which led to them assigning him projects in Germany:

preparations for a route planning system
sharing experiences from the Dutch implementation of SAP, in preparation for implementation in Germany
categorising assets (e.g. pallets and various types of cylinders) for calculating loading rates of vehicles
optimising the use of assets
setting KPIs, first for the Netherlands, later for all of Westfalen