Established in Italy in theearly 20^th century, Angelini is today, a €1 billion turnoverinternational group. As well as manufacturing and marketing pharmaceutical and healthcare products, Angelini isalso active in the agriculture and real estate sectors; its pharmaceuticalproducts can be found in over 60 countries and the company has subsidiaries inItaly, Spain, Portugal and Eastern Europe. It also has a stake in the majorIndian pharmaceutical company, Elder Pharma. Angelini’s pharmaceuticaldivision, based in Ancona, Italy, has one of the highest quality and mostcomprehensive product ranges in the market, including prescription medicines,over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceuticals, herbal and natural remedies, along withdisinfectant and first-aid products. Acraf Angelini is one of the top fivecompanies of this type in Italy, turning over €300 million and employing 1,150.

Notwithstanding thecompany’s general state of good health, the new Millennium heralded some fresh challenges:inefficient demand management was creating production instability, bringingwith it a surge in buffer stock to compensate for short-term variations. AsAngelini’s supply chain director, Doctor Egiziano Iencinella recalls: “Backthen, there were no adequate key performance indicators in place to monitor thebusiness and we had no sales and operations planning cycle to manage thecompany.” Communication within the company was also patchy, creating a lack ofmotivation and trust among the workforce. All this, says Iencinella, wasexacerbated by changes in the market, plus the increased complexity broughtabout by the company’s business acquisitions and growth in its productportfolio.

Iencinella had previousexperience of Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) when he worked in anAngelina/Procter and Gamble joint venture. “I knew we needed the samephilosophy if we were to grow our business without taking unnecessary risks. Westarted to implement it ourselves, but progress was slow, so I decided to callin ‘the S&OP founders’, Oliver Wight, to help propel the project forwards.”

Oliver Wight were appointed followingan initial assessment and presentations to the senior management team. Thechanges came thick and fast: “We very quickly got the commitment of thedirectors to organise the company around S&OP,” says Iencinella. OliverWight became the support for Iencinella and the project team to manageprogress; highlight the issues; resolve cultural complexities; and pave the wayto improvement. In the early days, this meant having to overcome the doubts ofsome managers over the new way of doing things. “Oliver Wight really helped geteveryone thinking the same way about the business: by implementing a fullprocess review we were able to align all our key activities and workflows tobest practice. That really helped create a true sense of belonging for allemployees and it provided the foundation for a solid continuous improvementprocess. We became enthused with the project and that really was the crucialelement for us to see it through to fruition.”

The effort paid off when,two years later, Acraf-Angelini achieved Class A certification for planning andcontrol. Changes within the business have been enormous - Angelini is now avery different company to the one it was when the project began; as Iencinellasays: “The project objectives at the outset were clear: we had to improvecustomer service levels from a position of below 75% (it reached 95% in twoyears); we had to improve the performance and reliability of our supply chain;we needed to link our industrial operation with our commercial operation if we wereto deploy a long-term strategy; and finally, we wanted to establish a companymission and supporting culture within the Angelini Group.”

Clearly, this entailed muchwork by Angelini personnel but, supported by expert mentoring and coaching fromthe Oliver Wight consultants, the company achieved its goals – and morebesides. Iencinella says the business benefits for Angelini have beensignificant: “Over the duration of the project so far, we estimate that theprocess improvements and efficiencies we’ve gained have delivered savings ofapproximately €2 million. The results are visible in many areas across thebusiness: manufacturing efficiency has improved; we’ve reduced stock; improvedcustomer service; and introduced new initiatives to boost purchasingperformance and create a truly continuous improvement culture throughout thecompany.”

Iencinella says he wouldhave no qualms about recommending Oliver Wight to other companies. “OliverWight have steered us through this project with a highly practical andpragmatic approach. Everyone in the company has respect for the Oliver Wightconsultants - they have profound experience and always use the right mixture ofencouragement and discipline to drive people towards improvement.” In fact, hesays, the Oliver Wight consultants were a truly integral part of the Angeliniteam: “They were totally committed to our cause and were always there tosupport us. If we hit a stumbling block, they were there with the answers.”

Savings and efficiencies on this scale have helpedAcraf Angelini’s consolidate its position as market leader, and today, thecompany is driving forwards with common direction throughout the business, fromproduction, to sales, to purchasing and more. And so successful has thisS&OP implementation been that it is now being rolled out to other businessunits in Angelini’s pharmaceutical division, starting with Spain and Portugal.