The Luís Simões Group, specialized in equipment and services for heavy goods vehicles, had LBC's partnership in the development of the stocks and purchases’ project.

Diagnostic

With this project (carried out in 2008), the Luís Simões group wanted to materialize the results of the counts carried out in the Socar warehouses, for which LBC contributed with recommendations for improving the stock management. The objective was to enable Socar with the procedural, material and human resources to manage, in a consistent and optimized way, the supply and stocks areas. To this end, LBC made a diagnosis of the Socar warehouses and then presented the main improvement opportunities.

Implemmentation

After identifying the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats (SWOT analysis), LBC presented recommendations/guiding principles for structuring the supply area of the portuguese group. For example, the potential savings associated to global purchases (stock and direct) was estimated at 9.9% of the total expenditure analyzed and 2.6% of the total global expenditure. In the case of direct purchases, with LBC's recommendations, the percentage of potential savings was 6.4% of the total analyzed and 1.2% of total expenditure in this type of purchases. Among the recommendations was the improvement in the application, sourcing and functional aspects, like the purchases of a given area allowing the saving of 15% in 2008 by increasing the aggregation of consumption and the reduction of direct purchases; or the family of components for an electrical part having an associated savings potential of 17% by reducing direct purchases by 50% in Socar (which, in 2010, and following an organizational restructuring in the group, underwent a merger with Reta, assuming the designation of Reta – Serviços Técnicos e Rent-a-Cargo).