Sibelco is a global material solutions company. Founded in 1872, they initially supplied silica sand to Belgium’s major glass producers. They utilize nature’s raw materials to provide solutions for society, ranging from drinking water sanitation to solar technology. Today, Sibelco is a multinational business, operating in over 200 production sites in more than 40 countries with a team of over 10,000 people.
Recently, Sibelco implemented a new ERP system on several plants in The Netherlands. An ERP system is a data-driven software system that helps businesses to integrate back office business processes and facilitate the flow of information within an organization. Unfortunately, the ERP system that was implemented at Sibelco showed several discrepancies. Those led to troublesome situations throughout the chain, causing problems with purchase orders and invoices. In order to solve these issues, Sibelco asked PDM to support the local team in Geertruidenberg with their project management during the last quarter of 2016.
Our consultant started off working on several quick wins, in order relieve work pressure and to create a support base within the participating teams. This allowed us to create a big impact in a short amount of time, with little effort. By doing this, we enabled the local team to start working on a structural solution with our consultant.
Even though we focused on the Operational Services staff at the Geertruidenberg plant, several centralized teams were also impacted by this project. The complexity of the situation made it essential for the teams to communicate well and work together closely. Our consultant coached the teams in doing so and helped them set up an interdisciplinary project organization. Six teams were involved in total, making it crucial for them to be transparent and to keep communicating about potential improvements.
Besides their hands-on project management, PDM was able to connect and motivate people in various disciplines, and made sure they were headed in the right direction.
Because of this approach, we were able to reach our project goals by the start of 2018:
During this project, Sibelco challenged us to provide a custom solution for them. Next to identifying and solving existing issues, we were able to bring the different teams together and improve their cooperation as well. Two cross functional teams were created outside of the scope of the project. By combining these matters, we were able to really create an impact. And that’s exactly where our strengths lie.
During this project, I was serving as a linchpin for the different departments. I’ve been able to bring the teams closer together by identifying issues and encouraging them to communicate openly. It has been great to see them develop a much better mutual understanding!