Optimizing Production Planning for Maximum Margin
A closer look at how a premium label producer optimized rough-cut capacity planning across 35 plants to enable global revenue growth
INDUSTRY
Consumer ProductsSOLUTION
Connected Planning & FulfillmentOFFERING
ESP Implementation, Production Planning Optimization, Cloud MigrationTECHNOLOGY
Blue Yonder ESP, Microsoft AzureFrom haphazard scheduling to profit-centered production planning
A global leader in label manufacturing—trusted by household CPG brands like Campbell’s Soup and Heinz—was struggling to keep production aligned with profitability.
With 35 plants, 12,000+ employees, and over 8,000 end‑customers, the company produced millions of labels across formats (press‑and‑stick, roll‑on, specialty). Roughly 14% of its labels were program‑based and repeatable year after year. But the remaining 86% required fresh capacity allocation each cycle.
Under its legacy Excel‑based Rough‑Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP) process, new jobs were simply dropped into the next available slot or line. No visibility. No profitability prioritization. The result: 400,000+ SKUs to manage, excessive press changeovers, wasted time, missed margin opportunities, and lead times stretching out to five weeks.
To stay competitive, the company needed to gain true visibility into its operations—visibility that could transform production planning from a cost center into a profit center.
Visibility first. Profitability next.
Spinnaker SCA partnered with the label maker to cut planning complexity, establish visibility, and introduce margin‑aware production planning powered by Blue Yonder ESP.
- 01 SKU simplification
- 02 Margin‑aware visibility
- 03 Dynamic capacity negotiation
- 04 New planning horizons
- 05 Change & enablement
From 400,000 SKUs to 3,000 logical models
From scheduling blind to profitability prioritization
By deploying Blue Yonder ESP, planners gained real‑time, network‑wide visibility into press capacity, labor, and demand shifts. For the first time, they could prioritize which jobs ran where—not just by availability, but by margin contribution.
From “first available” to “most profitable”
With network-wide visibility, planners could now dynamically shift work across teams and plants, allocating scarce capacity to the jobs that delivered the highest margin impact while minimizing idle time elsewhere and still meeting customer requirements.
Short term agility, long-term visibility
Time-phased weekly and monthly planning horizons replaced reactive daily scheduling. With up to 24 months of foresight into capacity constraints, long-range equipment and labor needs, the company could anticipate resource bottlenecks and model demand scenarios with confidence.
Trust in the system, trust in the outcome
Tailored training and adoption support helped planners transition from manual firefighting to strategic margin optimization. Automated recommendations allowed production planners to focus on strategic decisions—optimizing jobs for margin, duration, and efficiency - elevating production planning into a bona fide profit center for the entire org.
From blind spots to profit engine
With network‑wide visibility finally in place, production planning shifted from reactive firefighting to a proactive profit lever. By seeing capacity, demand, and profitability clearly, the company transformed planning from a cost burden into a revenue driver.
- Expanded revenue growth by unlocking visibility into contribution margin at the SKU level— planners could reallocate press capacity to higher-margin SKUs
- Simplified product portfolio: Transitioned from 400,000+ SKUs to 3,000 representative groupings—minimizing planning overhead and frequency of changeovers
- 50% reduction in planner time spent: Automation and streamlined logic freed planners to focus on strategic tasks
- 25% increase in data accuracy: Improved master data integrity and modeling precision across planning systems
- Achieved 95%+ OTIF: Surpassed 95% on-time-in-full delivery in 2025, with enhanced synchronization between demand and supply
- Seamless Azure migration: Midstream cloud and OS migration delivered under budget, with zero business disruption
Know your margins. Produce profits.
Unlock margin growth, improve OTIF, and optimize capacity utilization across every line, plant, and SKU. We're here to help.