De-risking a Consumer Goods Supply Chain
Overview
Our client could describe their tier one suppliers precisely and had almost no visibility of the tier two suppliers that actually stopped their lines.
Mohamed Azmy
Sr. Logistics and Supply Chain Consultant / fairsystems
Most supply chain risk sits one level below where companies look. Tier one is contracted, audited and understood; tier two is where single points of failure quietly accumulate, often several tier one suppliers depending on the same sole source. fairsystems was engaged by a consumer products manufacturer to find those concentrations before the next disruption did.
The Client
Our client manufactures household and personal care products for retail distribution across several markets, sourcing ingredients and packaging from a supplier base built up over decades. Recent years had brought a sequence of disruptions the business absorbed through firefighting and expedited freight, at considerable cost. Leadership wanted to understand structural exposure rather than continue reacting, but the supplier data needed to do so was spread across procurement, quality and finance systems that had never been reconciled.
Roadmap
1
Assess
fairsystems built a multi-tier supplier map, working outward from the client's own procurement records to establish who supplied their suppliers for the components that mattered. Our consultants combined contractual data, quality audit records and direct supplier engagement, because the tier two picture simply does not exist in any internal system. We then modelled failure scenarios against that map, quantifying revenue at risk rather than counting suppliers, which reframed the discussion: a handful of low-spend components carried far more exposure than the high-value categories procurement had historically focused on.
2
Deliver
Our team developed a differentiated mitigation strategy rather than a blanket dual-sourcing policy, because dual-sourcing everything is unaffordable and unnecessary. For the highest-exposure components we qualified alternative suppliers and negotiated capacity options. For a middle tier we established strategic buffer stock sized on lead time and disruption probability rather than on uniform weeks of cover. fairsystems rebuilt the supplier onboarding process to capture tier two dependency at qualification, so the map stays current, and integrated disruption indicators into the client's planning cycle.
3
Continue
fairsystems supports a semi-annual refresh of the multi-tier map and re-runs the scenario model as the supplier base and market conditions change. We work with procurement on category strategies that weigh resilience alongside unit cost, a trade-off the function had previously had no framework for making. Our consultants also run disruption simulation exercises with the client's planning and commercial teams, so that the response to a real event is rehearsed rather than improvised under pressure.
Solution Details
The supplier that stops your line is usually one you have never contracted with.
No visibility beyond tier one suppliers
Deliverable: fairsystems built a multi-tier supplier map combining procurement records, audit data and direct engagement, exposing concentrations invisible internally.
Risk measured by supplier count rather than exposure
Deliverable: Our consultants modelled revenue at risk per failure scenario, revealing that low-spend components carried the largest structural exposure.
Blanket dual-sourcing proposals that were unaffordable
Deliverable: We developed differentiated mitigation, qualifying alternatives only where exposure justified it and using buffers or contracts elsewhere.
Buffer stock set as uniform weeks of cover
Deliverable: fairsystems re-sized strategic buffers on lead time and disruption probability, releasing working capital while improving actual protection.
Supplier data fragmented across procurement, quality and finance
Deliverable: Our team reconciled the three sources into one supplier master, so exposure analysis runs on a single consistent view.
Tier two dependency never captured at onboarding
Deliverable: We rebuilt supplier qualification to record upstream dependency at the point of onboarding, keeping the map current without periodic rebuilds.
Category strategy weighing unit cost only
Deliverable: fairsystems gave procurement an explicit framework for trading resilience against cost, making the decision deliberate rather than implicit.
Disruption response improvised under pressure
Deliverable: Our consultants run simulation exercises with planning and commercial teams, so the playbook is rehearsed before it is needed.
Result:
The client can now see where their supply chain actually breaks, one tier below where they had been looking, and has mitigated the concentrations that carried real revenue exposure rather than the ones that looked largest on a spend report. Expedited freight spend fell as firefighting gave way to planning, and buffer stock is both smaller and better targeted. Procurement has a framework for weighing resilience against cost, and the multi-tier map refreshes itself through onboarding rather than through periodic consulting exercises.
0
Tier two supply base mapped
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Revenue at risk mitigated
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Expedited freight spend reduction
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Buffer stock working capital released
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Sole-source dependency reduction
Testimonials
How our services bring about success
Annika Nkosi
Lead Process Analyst
fairsystems’ team brought a unique combination of skills to our business assignment and was often sought out to tackle the most complex and integrated challenges.
Marie-Anne Badeaux
Programme Manager
fairsystems will challenge your thinking, provide you with alternative perspectives and, where appropriate, actively coach/mentor/advise you to generate and co-create solutions.
Justin J. Spratt
General Manager
Fairsystems consults impeccably to understand organizational needs and then brings innovative business relevant ideas and solutions to the table.
Mohamed Bin Naser
Chief Financial Officer
I am impressed with fairsystems’ team ability to grasp complex, accounting system problems and quickly find a simple, straightforward and affordable approach.
Ella-May Robinson
HR Manager
fairsystems has an incredible gift for making the complex appear simple and without being simplistic. It is a pleasure to work with them as they always deliver to an exceptionally high standard.
Jamal Aagha
Chief Executive Officer
There are some great companies in the media industry and the social space, but we have yet to see anyone take it to the level that we have with @fairsystems.
Allen Gibson
Operations Manager
The most valuable lesson we learned is that there are no shortcuts. Every minute we spent dissecting and learning was rewarded.
