Eramet
" We chose the Axiscope platform for its ease of use, its usability and its potential for evolution. It has become an indispensable tool for ensuring good supplier risk management for the whole group"
Stakes and Goals
- To facilitate the management of supplier data and improve its quality
- To increase efficiency and quality by integrating existing information systems and ERP to ensure data consistency
1 - The actors of the project
Eramet is a French mining and metallurgical group operating in twenty different countries and on five continents. The group's activity is mainly organized around 2 major divisions :
- the mining division with manganese mining in Gabon, nickel mining in New Caledonia and mineralized sand mining in Senegal
- the high performance alloys division, which develops special steels and very high performance alloys mainly for the aerospace and automotive industries
The group has a turnover of more than 3,5 billion euros and employs 13,000 people worldwide. ERAMET is present in many countries and is subject to numerous regulations, especially on supplier risk management with the Sapin II law or the duty of vigilance, but also more specific regulations or risks such as country risk.
2 - What are the missions of a SRM ? What are the challenges?
Our Purchasing organization manages an annual expenditure of €2400 billion in 20 countries and approximately 20,000 suppliers. Our Purchasing team is made up of 200 people spread around the world, each team with its own local regulatory constraints. It is based on several databases and management systems that do not communicate with each other. Supplier risks can have different sizes and categories, including :
- financial risks
- corruption risks
- risks of non-quality
- etc
This list is not exhaustive but these risks can have a direct impact on the activity of a production site. It is therefore in the context of the overall performance of the group's company that we need to know our suppliers and manage risks. Our wide range of business segments can also be a major source of risk if we do not give ourselves the means to properly identify, evaluate and control them.
3 - Main orientations adopted
It is very complex, if not impossible, to operate a good supplier risk management without having a good knowledge of these suppliers; for this, we hear several types of information from the most basic (who are my suppliers? For what amount of expenditure?) ... to the most advanced information (for example, has a shareholder of my supplier ever been condemned for ethical reasons?
"In order to manage and monitor this massive information of suppliers and allows good risk management, it was essential to have a single tool dedicated to supplier relationship management to frame and organize this information and adapt it to the requirements and purchasing organization of the Eramet Group."
4 - SRM ERAMET : A unique purchasing data referential
Given the size and organization of the group, which is highly fragmented with a multitude of existing and competing databases, it became essential to develop a SRM tool and at least one complete supplier database common to the entire company.
The implementation of this central tool was identified as a critical need to facilitate the management of supplier data and improve its quality, to allow an easiest risk management at the group level and to gain in efficiency and quality, while inlcuding existing information systems and ERPs in order to guarantee the consistency of the data. We chose the Axiscope platform for its ease of use, its usability and its potential for evolution. It has become an indispensable tool for ensuring good supplier risk management for the whole group.
5 - What are the benefits of a SRM ?
What we want is for a buyer to be able to have a 360 degree view of all supplier information. The solution built with Axiscope allows him to have instantly automatic risk alerts and to follow the evolution of his suppliers.
Without this platform, the number of tools and databases is multiplied, and the time spent by each person collecting information increased. Practices became quite unequal among buyers, and it was very complicated to get a synthetic picture of supplier risk.
The Axiscope SRM solution has also allowed us to increase the awareness and involvement of buyers in supplier risk management because they now have easier access to risk indicators and in a synthetic way.
6 - What are the lessons learned and feedback after 500 days ?
" Axiscope was able to adapt to our needs and specificities and offer us a tool with customised parameters that can evolve to support us in the development of our supplier relationship management practices."
We always continue to evolve and improve on the subject over time and as the Axiscope SRM itself develops. To conclude, I would say that when we talk about supplier risk management, we often tend to forget the opportunity it represents; to take just one example that is close to my heart, it is the CSR risks that allow us to establish a virtuous dialogue with suppliers! Risk management gives us the opportunity to discover new practices, innovations, areas for improvement or to identify the best performing suppliers. And finally, it helps us to improve our own practices within the ERAMET Group and, consequently, our own performance.
