A fractional COO inside an ANZ automotive consumables manufacturer. Company and retailer unnamed.
New Zealand had a real planning system. Australia and New Zealand still ran purchase and manufacturing on a seven-sheet workbook. That meant stockouts, over-ordering, late runs and firefighting on both sides of the Tasman. The first move was not a new platform. It was making the existing NZ system the one people actually planned on.
Chris was mostly in Sydney. Stock, components and finished goods sat in Auckland. Weekly calls with the factory supervisor and NZ admin checked every planned order against what was actually on the floor. That loop exposed bad master data: wrong default suppliers and incorrect bill-of-materials lines. Planning only worked once the numbers in the system matched the factory.
About three to four months in, the factory supervisor worried the plant was not busy enough. Finished goods were already plentiful. The shift was deliberate: manufacture to demand, not to keep machines running. That freed capacity the old approach had hidden.
From late 2024 that spare capacity mattered. A contract with one of ANZ’s largest big-box retailers added four new products, large first orders, and retailer-specific sizes that needed new components. Every original order was made and delivered into Australian and New Zealand warehouses on deadline. About a year later the same retailer asked for another seventeen products.
By mid-2025, Sydney warehouse capacity looked serious: big-box volume, plus a new range landing late 2025 into early 2026. The fix was physical. Count empty pallet spaces. Review what was actually stored. Cut local finished goods to one month for steady movers. Keep imported at three months. Raise raw materials and components so short-term demand spikes could be made, not stored.
NZ packed containers to maximise space. Australia then received the same SKU on pallets of mixed quantities and restacked for every customer order. Standard pallet quantities, plus a customer incentive to buy full pallets, cut that labour hard. In Australia the full-time warehouse team went from four to three, and casuals from six days a week to three.
COO d'Prix Pty Ltd · Sydney, NSW · ABN 77 649 762 710 ·