Supply - Chain - Management
Reducing WIP Inventory at Swagelok

With the goal of modernizing its supply chain in the wake of a leadership change, Swagelok began looking for a
solutions provider to help the manufacturer reduce inventory while maintaining its high levels of service. Choosing
i2 to help it overhaul its forecasting and replenishment processes, Swagelok significantly reduced inventory and
personnel costs while elevating service levels.

For manufacturers, there may be no more important
competitive factor than product quality. By focusing
on quality, Swagelok, a manufacturing corporation that
delivers thousands of types of fluid system components
to a wide range of global industries, has built a strong
brand for more than 50 years.
But through the years, Swagelok has defined – and
measured – quality in new and different ways. While
the company’s founder had always operated under
an inventory-intensive strategy, today’s competitive
environment dictates a leaner inventory model.
“As part of a strategic planning effort in the late
1990s, our leadership examined all of our major business
processes,” said Greg Houdek, Swagelok’s Director of
Supply Chain Planning. “We had an initiative at that
time called ‘Supply Chain of the Future,’ which focused
on how we were selling, producing, and fulfilling our
orders. For the first 50 years, our business model
was based on availability through intensive inventory.
Most of our systems were centered around that inventory,
not so much on information.”