Speaking on Boston Beer's fourth quarter earnings, CEO David Burwick outlined the supply chain transformation efforts. He said:
"We're working hard on our supply chain transformation initiatives to improve line efficiencies in our internal breweries and better manage our inventory. The disciplined portfolio management as well as our new supply chain systems and processes should lead to better operational performance over time."
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Boston Beer CFO Frank Smalla said the company is looking to improve supply chain visibility as well as the agility needed to react to market trends. Smalla added that Boston Beer sees its systems transformation as a process change effort too.
"It's implementing an end-to-end process supported by the systems and we're well underway," said Smalla.
Smalla broke down the supply chain and systems transformation in three components.
- A warehouse management system from SAP.
- A planning system that covers demand, supply, production and inventory planning.
- And order management within SAP.
Smalla added that Boston Beer is implementing the warehouse management system in one facility in Ohio with plans to follow in Delaware and Pennsylvania. The planning system implementation is also underway with order management in parallel.
He said:
"When it comes to systems and visibility we should be in a much better place by the end of the year. There's a huge change management effort that comes with it. The main focus was to keep on being able to keep on receiving materials to ship so that there's no disruption in the supply chain."