How is o9 Unlocking Value for RHI Magnesita?

As businesses look to ensure resilient and integrated supply chains, reliability is a major priority.

RHI Magnesita, a cement company and supplier of refractory products, systems and services, operates a complex, vertically-integrated chain within heavy industry. 

As its products are critical to customers, it needs to ensure resilience across every step of the chain.

At the Go&See event in Vienna, co-hosted by o9, EFESO and RHI Magnesita, leaders gathered to experience how o9 Solutions is helping RHIM with its digital supply chain planning transformation.

Market demands

The volatile supply chain market over the past 12 months has demonstrated how easily one fault can have process-stopping results for global supply chains. Companies who are not taking the steps to undergo transformation or build resilience strategies are risking falling behind or losing the agility to maintain operations throughout turbulence.

The event, therefore, acted as an opportunity for business leaders to see a first-hand insight into how digital transformation can help develop smooth operations for an organisation.

Alberto Fabregat, SVP, Strategy & Sales at o9 explains: "For attendees, it was a unique opportunity to hear leaders at a large global enterprise speak candidly about the learnings behind the transformation, the redesign of its operating model, the progress achieved to date, and the value across inventory, service performance, and planning productivity.

Company requirements

RHI Magnesita works with some of the world's most demanding industrial processes, with its products forming the backbone of modern infrastructure and mining.

As Alberto explains, for RHI Magnesita, "The stakes could hardly be higher. Much like a single faulty component can halt an entire automotive assembly line, the failure of one refractory element can bring a complex, capital-intensive operation to a standstill. For RHI Magnesita's customers, reliability is a prerequisite."

In order to meet the standard, the company must have strong global sourcing capabilities that can work across complex projects and networks. The need to deliver high precision at scale has shaped RHI Magnesita's transformation strategy, with the help from experts o9. 

The strategy is built around four priorities:

• Inventory - RHIM serves more than 250,000 SKUs across 10,000 customer locations and a network of 67 production sites and more than 250 warehouses. The aim is to open up working capital while striking the strategic balance to deliver consistently high service to customers.
• Structural efficiency - With such a global network, RHIM faces the risks of fragmented systems and manual buffers. Instead, the company is aiming to redesign planning in order to connect silos, make higher-value decisions and reconcile data.
• Supply resilience as a strategic offering - The company is looking to become contractually committed to supply continuity and resilience, providing it with a strategic benefit when operating in a volatile market.
• Sustainability as a competitive advantage - RHIM is embedding circular economy principles into its planning in order to reduce CO₂ emissions and build greater self-sufficiency. The aim is to turn it into an operational and commercial advantage – particularly as consumers make the shift of opting towards more sustainable purchasing.

Alberto states: "Each of these levers demanded a planning platform capable of operating at genuine enterprise scale, integrating across a fragmented global network, and adapting as the business model evolved. That requirement shaped the technology decision as much as any other factor."

Visible impacts

RHIM has gained significant value since implementing the o9 platform to its operations. Prior to adopting o9, demand planning was conducted at aggregated levels, but it now has statistical and machine learning-based forecasting. The system also now guides planners and sales teams on where intervention can be utilised to improve accuracy. 

Moreover, RHIM can undergo automated supply plan generation in order to enable forward-looking scenario planning. Alberto says: "Replenishment and feasibility views have replaced hundreds of localised spreadsheets, creating a single, standardised approach across regions. As a result, the role of the planner has fundamentally shifted."

This means that teams can now focus on specific issues, identify bottlenecks and proactively evaluate scenarios. Now, the company is undergoing controlled agility which operates across a comprehensive and cohesive planning backbone. 

The event demonstrated how accurate forecasting, intelligent inventory positioning, reliable order promising and the ability to absorb disruption without impacting customers have become the differentiator between success and failure. In order to succeed, businesses need to make strategic partner decisions, looking at who can design, build and continuously improve the product.