Teamwork key to profitable product assortment

The Einstein project: The ROCKWOOL Group has taken an important step forward to increase product profitability and reduce assortment complexity in European markets.

The ROCKWOOL Group has an extensive product assortment with tens of thousands unique products and thousand product groups. Every month, hundreds of unique products are added. According to Dorthe Finne, Supply Chain Development Manager in Group Supply Chain, the large number of products is not a problem in itself.

The ROCKWOOL Group has an extensive product assortment with tens of thousands unique products and thousand product groups. Every month, hundreds of unique products are added. According to Dorthe Finne, Supply Chain Development Manager in Group Supply Chain, the large number of products is not a problem in itself.

The project is inspired by the German scientist Albert Einstein, who quoted: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.

The project is inspired by the German scientist Albert Einstein, who quoted: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.

“But several issues derive from an extensive product assortment such as unfocused assortments and high costs. Analysis show that about 80% of the Group’s sales are generated by only 12% of the products, so there is a big potential in cleaning up,” she says. That is why the Einstein project was started, and the results speak for themselves: thanks to the Einstein project ROCKWOOL Germany has managed to simplify its general building insulation assortment significantly and cut down the number of products by 30%. And ROCKWOOL Scandinavia has reduced its production costs by avoiding thousands of product changeovers the last two years, just to mention two examples. Create overview together “The main concept behind Einstein is to bring colleagues from Finance, Production, Logistics, Marketing and Sales together to discuss and make common decisions about the assortment. All parties have a unique knowledge about our products, and when we put this knowledge together we can make better decisions for our business,” says Dorthe Finne. The initiative has been implemented in Scandinavia, Germany, Poland and Benelux, and is well on its way in UK. Einstein is now anchored as a structured approach and a yearly event in the operating companies. So how have our customers reacted? One of our Product Managers in ROCKWOOL Germany and Einstein team member says: “Our customers welcome this clear product assortment with a clear and reliable delivery service. Over the years, the number of product groups and articles increased substantially. This resulted in increased handling and management of our stock, shorter production runs and an unclear product range in our customers’ perspective. Due to the general trend in general building insulation towards better thermal performance, we could skip many products with lambda 40-value and thereby create much better clarity for the customers.” This article is written by our Group Communications department.