Supply chain optimization in the energy and utilities industry

The transition to clean energy and the grid expansion it requires pose challenges for energy and utilities providers. Efficient logistics and supply chain processes are crucial for success.

In the transition to clean energy, utility providers must maintain and expand their grids and ensure the necessary services to keep them running. This transition significantly impacts the supply chain. The biggest challenges include:

Significantly more material flows

beyond the capacities of existing logistics processes and sites

High levels of material inventory

and fixed capital, in addition to bottlenecks for critical components

Costs for special processes

including external storage and special transports

Increasing complexity of logistics processes

and their integration in overarching business processes and IT landscapes

To address these challenges, 4flow supports businesses with operational supply chain processes, supply chain infrastructure, planning and scheduling processes, and IT transformation.

Together with our customers in the energy and utilities sector, 4flow achieves significant cost savings and performance improvements. Common results include sustainably optimized supply chain processes, inventory reduction and higher service levels.

Our experts benchmark our customers’ level of development against the skills required in the future of the energy and utilities industry, identify improvement potential and define measures for optimization.

We design tailor-made solutions for logistics processes and technologies in both existing and new buildings. The plans are evaluated with a business case analysis that reflects regulatory requirements. This method ensures transparent, well-founded decision making.

We support customers to reduce inventory while simultaneously ensuring target service levels. Optimize your demand forecasting during planning processes with artificial intelligence tailored to your requirements. We evaluate the financial benefits of all measures with a business case.

Our experts support customers to optimize IT processes in their logistics and supply chains – whether with the transformation to SAP S/4HANA or implementation of SAP EWM or other warehouse management systems. We also help customers implement sales and operations planning (S&OP) software. We collaborate with our customers from strategy creation to the definition of requirements, tendering and IT selection, all the way to implementation.

“BayWa r.e. Solar Trade was strongly supported by 4flow experts in change, software implementation and process design. We benefited from best-practice experience while defining a new end-to-end planning process tailored to the needs of our PV supply chain. With the new planning process in place, we’re able to manage our entire value chain more efficiently and respond to changes and disruptions faster. We can now reduce the risk of shortages and overstocking, while enabling advanced supply chain collaboration both internally and with our vendors and partners.”

Dominik Dohr

Global Head of Supply Chain at BayWa r.e. Solar Trade