Apollo Tyres

Apollo Tyres recast its supply chain strategy from a ‘push-based’ to ‘pull-based’ one. This meant that its response to demand is now based on actual sales rather than a forecast made by a person or a system. Presently, all sales offices, warehouses and even plants are on a replenishment-based system. The planning cycle has been reduced from a monthly to a daily cycle. Consequently, they have been able to sense change in customer demand in days, compared to weeks, in the past. This has created a supply chain that is far more responsive and demand-driven than the earlier one.

The results are thus: 64% reduction in lost sales, and 12% improvement in service levels with reduced inventory. These have contributed significantly to customer satisfaction and delivered financial benefits, solving the classic problem of balancing service levels with inventory.

Tailor-made tyres result in more SKUs of smaller quantity.  To address this need, and as part of the Apollo Manufacturing System (AMS), the company practices the following: reducing complexities in the components that are assembled to make the tyre in order to handle more varieties (SKUs) with ease; quick changeover by using SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies) to increase the number of changeover by reducing the changeover time; and isolating the smaller lots from the bulk run to handle the smaller lots in a focused manner without compromising the advantage of bulk production.