Our Supply Chain Heroes program recognizes and celebrates the hard work of LeanDNA customers who optimize inventory, reduce shortages, and empower their companies to operate more efficiently. Every hero has a story, and we’re here to tell them.
Meet supply chain hero Gabriela Flores, Supply Chain Team Manager at Ford. Gabriela leads a team responsible for reconciling inventory data across systems and putting a standardized process in place where inconsistency used to be the norm.
Building a Standard Where One Never Existed
Before implementing APEX by LeanDNA, Gabriela's team had no standardized way to calculate safety stock across their part numbers. Every part was handled a little differently, so there was no consistent method the team could point to and say, with confidence, "this is why we're holding this much inventory."
Ford's ERP, CMMS, added its own friction. Pulling clean, usable data from the ERP was a challenge, which is why they needed a tool like APEX. It gave Gabriela's team a way to build a real standard. Putting that standard in place still took rigor. Gabriela led her team through validating CMMS data against APEX's recommendations field by field before rolling changes out across the plant. That kind of scrutiny before adoption is standard practice in automotive, and it's exactly the discipline that let her team trust the new standard once it was live.
Standardization for Daily Work
The new standardized process was supported by APEX’s Inventory Optimization capability. Instead of relying on a single static formula, Inventory Optimization classifies each part’s demand pattern, stable versus erratic, and recommends a safety stock level based on that pattern.
Gabriela’s team uses this daily, reviewing the top increase and decrease recommendations site by site rather than accepting them wholesale, a discipline that has let them build confidence in the numbers while still applying their own judgment.
Recognized for Results, Focused on What’s Next
Gabriela’s team has already been recognized as best in Ford Powertrain Operations for four-walls turns, a measure of inventory turns inside the plant. It’s a marker of the discipline she’s built into the team’s daily process. Not only that, but they realized measurable impact with:
- $400K worth of safety stock reduction
- 50% reduction in the time it takes the team to complete analysis
“The best part of innovating a process is to get the expected results. With APEX implementation, it is easy to make some calculations that help us to make smart decisions for optimizing inventory.” - Gabriela Flores
Looking ahead, Gabriela is focused on continuing to innovate through kaizen, with a particular eye on reducing inventory in transit to improve global turns over the next six months.
A Word of Advice: Don’t Be Afraid to Innovate
When asked what she would share with other supply chain professionals, Gabriela pointed to a mindset, not a specific tool or tactic.
“Don’t be afraid to innovate processes. Every step that you make in innovation is a way for saving time in the future.” - Gabriela Flores
Gabriela's willingness to question "how we've always done it," paired with the rigor to build a standard her whole team could trust, is exactly the kind of leadership that turns a new tool into a lasting standard.
If you’d like to nominate someone for our Supply Chain Hero program or view more heroes’ stories, click here.
If Gabriela’s story resonated with you and you’d like to learn more about LeanDNA, click here to schedule a demo.
