About Orkla Care

Pierre Robert Oy is part of Orkla Care Finland and the Orkla Group. Orkla Care Finland provides Finnish homes with high-quality products for personal wellbeing, health and wound care, home care and cleaning, as well as basic garments and underwear that fit the Finnish taste. Our most well-known brands are Möller, Nutrilett, Sana-Sol, Jordan, Salvequick, Norlyn, Pierre Robert and Black Horse.

  • Pierre Robert Group AS was founded in 1956. Orkla is one of Norway’s oldest business conglomerates, the company’s history dates to 1654.
  • In 2020, Orkla Care Finland's turnover amounted to 61 million euros, and they had 79 employees.
  • Orkla Care Finland operates in Finland. Orkla Group's main markets are the Nordic and Baltic regions and selected countries in Central Europe.
 

From searching data to seeing data

 

A notable impact was identified to be in the areas of inventory control and purchasing. The related decisions are traditionally risky due to for example long lead times as well as the wide size and color ranges. Standardizing the processes with tools, reports and KPIs would support data-driven decision-making when managing the supply chain.

"We've had high focus and good success in our internal development projects. We've also identified that by developing our tools to get better access to relevant data the decisions will accordingly be better for the business."

Jonas Wiik, CFO of Orkla Care

Tools and reports for continuous inventory control

One of the main targets for the project was to define and develop the needed reports to gain visibility to inventories. In addition, one deliverable was also a tool for calculating stocking parameters to standardize inventory control and purchasing decisions. The reports and tools developed included the following:

  • Segmentation (abc and xyz analyses)
  • Turn and Earn analysis
  • Inventory forecasts and target stock calculations
  • Forecast accuracy report


On top of the report development, the related processes should also be defined simultaneously, so that they go hand in hand. Therefore, the purchase plan process, as well as the master data management model, were defined and documented with needed control points.

Enabling data-driven decision making to minimize supply chain risks

The main result was the actual Power BI tool consisting of the reports and calculations that make inventory control more efficient at Pierre Robert. Standardizing reports helped release time from processing unstructured data, meaning more time is available for actual analysis and decision making.
"By releasing time we were able to get a head start to purchase plans, which was crucial in managing risks of increased lead times and freight challenges that are currently going on.”
Margit Heikkinen, Supply Chain Manager for Pierre Robert
 
The whole definition work was done in close co-operation with the people who will be using the tools in the future, which made adapting to the new ways of working as smooth as possible, even though there were some new analyses and KPIs introduced.

Main results

  • Increased focus with product segmentation – products that require and are worth the manual effort are identified.
  • Identification of items that are turning costs into margins with turn and earn analysis.
  • Standardized calculations providing a standardized starting point for planning and purchasing decisions are driven by facts.
"In addition to the reports and tools, we also defined processes to manage our purchases and control the inventories in a more proactive manner. There were new things that we haven't measured at Pierre Robert before, so it was helpful to have an outside view to help brainstorm how we could implement and truly adopt the tools within our organization. My team waited anxiously to start using the tools and reports in their daily work."  
Margit Heikkinen, Supply Chain Manager for Pierre Robert
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Maria Åberg
Head of Knowit Insight in Finland
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