The Challenge / Opportunity
Apex Tool Group’s primary challenges included:
- Fragmented planning processes requiring Excel workarounds due to limited supply planning capabilities in their legacy system.
- Excessive inventory levels coupled with low forecast accuracy, which hampered supply chain responsiveness.
- A need for improved collaboration between demand and supply teams to support network-wide planning and key sales events like U.S. holiday seasons.
The Solution
After a comprehensive supply chain diagnostic conducted by Scott Sheldon’s team, Apex Tool Group selected Kinaxis Maestro for demand planning, inventory planning, and distribution requirements planning. The project followed a structured crawl-walk-run methodology to ensure early wins and sustained adoption.
Scott Sheldon provided hands-on support throughout, helping Apex Tool Group align the technology with business processes and driving best practices globally via a newly established Center of Excellence.
The Results
Kinaxis Maestro delivered significant improvements:
- Enabled real-time collaboration between demand and supply, improving network-wide planning agility.
- Accelerated scenario planning to assess impacts of production timing shifts and inventory changes on sales and supply.
- Reduced inventory footprint with better visibility and management of excess stock through bulk buying strategies with key customers.
- Improved forecast accuracy and introduced forecast value-add metrics previously unattainable.
- Dramatically increased planning efficiency by aggregating forecasts, reducing time spent from hours to seconds.
- Provided cross-functional teams with the confidence to answer “what-if” questions and make faster, data-driven decisions.
- Achieved a timely, on-budget go-live and maintained high internal adoption and momentum post-launch.
Looking Ahead
Eighteen months post-go-live, Apex continues to evolve its supply chain planning maturity with Kinaxis Maestro. The ongoing partnership with Scott Sheldon ensures continuous operational improvements, risk mitigation, and alignment with business goals.
This transformation has positioned Apex Tool Group to better navigate demand volatility, optimize inventory, and enhance service levels across its global operations.