Bombardier transportation finds a global supply chain solution

Updated May 5, 2023
By Curt Trnka | Blue Print Editorial Team

Berlin, Germany

If you’ve ever been on a train in Europe or ridden the subway in New York, Tokyo, or London, there’s a good chance you’ve been on something that was built by Bombardier Transportation, the largest supplier of passenger railcars in the world.

​To get a sense of just how vast Bombardier Transportation’s product reach is, consider that Beijing is home to the busiest subway system in the world with 10 million daily riders. That’s more people riding trains in one place than live in New York City. Now add up all of the people across the globe who ride on passenger cars produced by Bombardier Transportation and the number of riders becomes even more impressive. The company estimates that 500 million riders rely on Bombardier Transportation’s products to get safely to their destinations every day. 
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​“We look far ahead to see and shape the future of mobility. Our goal is to continuously find better ways to bridge distances and bring people together.
Across cities, countries and the globe. This is our passion.”
​– A statement from Bombardier Transportation
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WORKING ACROSS BORDERS
Bombardier Transportation’s rail transportation business began with a single contract in Canada and has grown into a global pioneer in the industry. Working across many countries, in many different languages and currencies, has its challenges. Above all, employees’ safety needs must be met. Then, local government and jurisdiction requirements must be adhered to; this applies to maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) concerns and also to any original equipment manufacturer (OEM) issues. Finally, the amount of time spent managing the supply chain needs to be kept in check.

At many facilities, workers had to walk long distances to get needed supplies, which would cause delays and slow production. Time was spent managing hundreds of vendors and replenishing thousands of part bins. Bombardier Transportation began to address the issue by creating centralized equipment cribs, but processes were still manual. Bins still had to be filled and workers still had to walk to the crib, and once there, materials could sometimes be out of stock.

“Some of the problems we were looking to solve were management of inventory, inventory reduction, looking at initiatives for cost reductions, and processes improvement,” said Geraldine Mihalache, project administrator for Bombardier Transportation who takes care of vendor-managed inventory implementation and various suppliers as a commodity buyer.

​Bombardier Transportation wanted to gain efficiencies and better understand the sheer volume of parts they were buying. They had local distributors in almost every case, which meant the product portfolios were unique for every single facility. The overall goals for Bombardier Transportation were to consolidate everything they were buying, reduce the overall number of Items, and have one shared data system across all sites.

GETTING UP TO SPEED
In order to bring even more value to their products, Bombardier Transportation’s executive team established a goal to unlock their finite resources such as time, cost, and labor. Bombardier Transportation began looking for a partner who could reduce costs throughout their end-to-end supply chain, increase their working capital, and provide increased visibility through digitalization. According to Chris Garratt, regional vice president for Fastenal Europe, Bombardier Transportation selected Fastenal out of a wide range of suppliers, due in large part to Fastenal’s customer service approach, flexibility, and global reach.

“We chose Fastenal as a global partner because of their big footprint which absolutely fits the expectations for our global partnership,” said Sergej Raising, a category professional with Bombardier Transportation, responsible for the company’s industrial consumables strategy around the world.

Fastenal was excited to take on a project with the scale and complexity that Bombardier Transportation was requiring. According to Garratt, the two companies were well suited to partner due to a shared focus on safety as well as Bombardier Transportation’s desire to drive the program throughout their organization globally. Bombardier Transportation was eager to remove complexity from their supply chain to allow workers to focus on designing and building transportation systems.

​“The project with Bombardier Transportation was one of the most exciting safety opportunities we’ve had recently,” said Brent Roeder, Fastenal’s VP of Safety, Metalworking, and Sustainability. “We began to work with them in 13 different locations, six different languages, and three different currencies. The partnership allowed us to really focus on providing the right personal protective equipment (PPE), while making sure we were compliant with all of the government regulations at the same time. So really, truly, it allowed us to give our customer the best of everything they wanted from SKU consolidation to fitness for use.”

ROLLING ALONG
To be where assistance was most needed, Fastenal established onsite branches in eight of Bombardier Transportation’s facilities. Each onsite acts as a store with consigned inventory and dedicated Fastenal employees on staff to respond to needs as they happen. These Fastenal teams handle purchasing products, replenishing point-of-use bin locations, and receiving goods for the entire supply chain. By taking this work on, Fastenal frees up Bombardier Transportation’s employees to spend more time producing quality transportation products.

“The overall goal for Bombardier Transportation was truly to consolidate everything that they were buying,” said Roeder. “They wanted to be able to say for a specific job, ‘Here’s what we want to use whether it’s in Germany, Switzerland, or France.’ And then make sure the selected product actually protected the worker, no matter what they were doing. So, one of the key outcomes we had, was that we decreased Items in some of their core categories by nearly 80%.”

One example of a reduction in Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) comes from hand protection, which represented, at the time, about 40% of Bombardier Transportation’s spend. Fastenal took the original 104 different families of gloves and consolidated it down to just 24. From a financial standpoint, the outcome was valuable in that it generated cost savings at the site level that range from 25 to 35%.

​To reach these product standardization goals, Fastenal operates as a purchasing and quality control entity as well as an innovator. In this role, Fastenal worked with Bombardier Transportation to set up a point-of-use vending program across all their facilities, ensuring critical products such as safety items are available 24/7 to protect employees. 

ON THE RIGHT TRACK
Many of Bombardier Transportation's goals – cost-savings, SKU reduction, digital visualization of the supply chain, and a decrease in total vendors – were achieved due in large part to having a successful vending program. The technology offers reporting along with point-of-use access to products used within each facility. Fastenal sent a team to examine how best to provide Bombardier Transportation with a system that would maximize tracking and productivity.

“One of the major components of this program has been vendor consolidation, both on the MRO side and the OEM side,” said Garratt. “We’ve been able to drive out a lot of time and money spent managing small vendor relationships. The numbers we’ve tracked are that we’ve reduced Bombardier Transportation’s supply base by about a thousand vendors.”

Fastenal’s vending and bin stock solutions helped Bombardier Transportation save time and money by removing the guess work of managing inventory. The Fast 360 digital dashboard shows what items are being used at each location throughout the system. Machines send digital alerts if stock gets low, and the Fastenal Onsite teams handle replenishment so that Bombardier Transportation’s teams can stay focused on their projects without worrying about inventory.

​“One of the single most valuable results that Fastenal has brought to the business since I’ve been working with them is some very aggressive cost-savings initiatives,” said Mihalache. “I would say to another company that is thinking of partnering with Fastenal, shop around if you have to, do your due diligence, but go for it. I really do recommend it. I’ve already told others. This is a good relationship. They are hardworking, and they get us results.” 


NOTE: Alstom recently purchased Bombardier Transportation. 

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ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP

Sergej Raising
Bombardier Transportation, Global Category Professional
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“What I admired most was the Fastenal people and the way they approach problems and how they’re looking for solutions. I see the future of the partnership between Fastenal and Bombardier Transportation as very positive. We’re looking on the long term for this partnership.”

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Geraldine Mihalache
Bombardier Transportation, Project Administrator

“What I value the most in the relationship with Fastenal is the fact that I can trust the information that I’m getting. I can trust the people that I’m working with, and it’s very transparent. I get a lot of suggestions proactively, little initiatives, and they’ll say, ‘You know, we have an idea. What about this?’ I really appreciate that.”

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Tamas Todor
Fastenal, Business Sales Specialist

“Everyone worked together to make this project succeed. District Managers, Account Specialists, Project Managers and all our support teams made sure that the implementation was done in a timely manner, with customized service solutions that meet Bombardier Transportation’s expectations.” ​

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Gerry Moschonas
Fastenal, Strategic Accounts Manager
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“I think what sets Fastenal apart for Bombardier Transportation is our global footprint and our flexibility. Each time Bombardier Transportation has had specific objectives or goals they wanted to meet, we’ve been able to take our existing solutions, tailor them to meet Bombardier Transportation’s needs, and then expand those solutions on a global scale.”
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