Sample War Map
Automotive supplier War Map
Tier-2 automotive supplier · plastic injection and assembly · 2 plants · 62 presses · 260 employees
Customer releases change inside the firm zone every week. The press plan is rebuilt by hand, premium freight follows, and the cause is rarely written down, so it cannot be recharged.
A War Map is an operating map built from real cases and expert interviews. It shows where the business is fragile, what that costs, and what to fix first.
What you receive
- 01Operational Reality
How the work really runs: people, systems, handoffs and exceptions.
- 02Findings
What it costs: quantified problems, process gaps and key-person risks.
- 03Implementation plan
What to fix first: prioritized systems, timeline and value drivers.
30 minutes. We recommend the right starting point.
Tier-2 automotive supplier · plastic injection and assembly · 2 plants · 62 presses · 260 employeesThis War Map shows how we turn an operational review into an implementation plan. The dates show a possible sequence; the scope and schedule of a real engagement are agreed with you.
Operational Reality
This is what we deliver: a map of where the business is fragile, what it costs, what to automate first, and which systems should exist so leadership can stop carrying the operation by hand.
Illustrative five-week work plan, February 2 to March 6, 2026. Eleven interview roles across seven departments, two plants and seven systems. The final week is split into synthesis and handover.
Five-week sample timeline · six work blocks
One row per week. Open a week to see each working day.
- Week 1Feb 2 to Feb 6
Customer flows and the press plan
Scope set. Release intake, press planning and premium freight shadowed on both plants.
People: Philippe Garnier, Nathalie Roussel, Sandrine Lefèvre, Karim Benali, Julien Masson
Daily detail · 5 days
Feb 2Kickoff + Scope AlignmentAgreed scope across both plants. Listed the 14 customer flows, the 62 presses and the workflows to shadow in logistics, planning, quality and engineering.
Philippe Garnier · CEOSilogExcelFeb 3Monday Release IntakeWatched the weekly intake. 9 flows import through EDI. 5 come from customer portals or PDFs and are typed into Silog. Each release is compared with the previous one, line by line, in Excel.
Sandrine Lefèvre · Customer Logistics LeadEDISilogPortalsExcelFeb 4Press Planning BoardThe sequence for 62 presses lives in one Excel workbook. Silog MRP drives resin and insert purchasing only. Tool-to-press rules and colour sequences are in Karim's head.
Karim Benali · Production PlannerExcelSilogMESFeb 5Premium Freight Log ReviewReviewed 12 months of urgent shipments: 276 bookings, €372K, average €1,350. A cause is recorded for 55 of them. €18K was recharged to customers.
Julien Masson · Supply Chain ManagerExcelOutlookFeb 6Shop Floor + ChangeoversFollowed two mould changes on plant 1. One planned at 2 hours took 3 h 40 because the insert kit and the colour masterbatch were not staged.
Nathalie Roussel · Plant DirectorMES - Week 2Feb 9 to Feb 13
Quality, engineering and money
8D, PPAP and tooling flows mapped. Five broken EDI flows and €410K of unbilled tooling found.
People: Thomas Girod, Isabelle Faure, Émilie Perrin, Bruno Chevalier, Hélène Mathieu, Romain Dubois
Daily detail · 5 days
Feb 9Live 8D ComplaintFollowed a tier-1 complaint about broken clips. Containment started within 6 hours. The D3 left at hour 29 because the suspect period had to be rebuilt from MES cycles, resin lots in Silog and paper box labels.
Thomas Girod · Customer Quality EngineerPortalsQMSMESSilogFeb 10IATF 16949 Documentation140 control plans and PFMEAs kept in Excel. 23 were not updated after the last process change. The surveillance audit is due in June.
Isabelle Faure · Quality ManagerQMSExcelFeb 11Engineering Changes + PPAP14 open engineering changes. Drawing revisions arrive by OEM portal and by email. No PLM: the revision in production is checked in a shared folder.
Émilie Perrin · Program ManagerPortalsOutlookExcelFeb 12Tooling Change RequestsTooling quotes built in Excel from three toolmakers. €410K of customer-funded tooling is waiting for PPAP approval or a customer purchase order before it can be invoiced.
Bruno Chevalier · Tooling ManagerExcelOutlookFeb 13EDI, Finance + IT ReviewTwo VDA flows stopped mapping when a customer moved portals in 2024 and were never fixed. €22K of tooling went unbilled last year because the approval email was lost.
Hélène Mathieu · Finance ControllerEDISilog - Week 3Feb 16 to Feb 20
Internal Analysis
Release volatility measured, premium freight causes sampled and 16 workflows mapped.
People: No interviews this week
Daily detail · 5 days
Feb 16Release Volatility AnalysisCompared 26 weeks of releases. About 210 lines a week; 38% change from one week to the next and 9% change inside the frozen horizon, about 19 lines a week.
EDIExcelFeb 17Premium Freight Cause SamplingMatched the 276 bookings with release history and MES downtime. 41% follow a customer change inside the frozen horizon, 33% follow press or tool downtime, 26% follow internal planning or material gaps.
ExcelMESFeb 18Complaint History Review12 months: 131 customer complaints, 46 full 8Ds. Average time to D3: 31 hours. 17 of the 46 missed the 24-hour requirement.
QMSPortalsFeb 19Time Allocation StudyGrouped the tasks of the 11 interview roles into five categories, using shadowing notes and task logs. No extrapolation to the 260 employees.
Feb 20Process Map ConstructionBuilt process maps for the 16 workflows and compared each written procedure with what was observed on the floor.
- Week 4Feb 23 to Feb 27
Internal Analysis
8 opportunities, a four-month sequence and value ranges with their assumptions written out.
People: No interviews this week
Daily detail · 5 days
Feb 23Opportunity IdentificationSelected 8 opportunities across 4 departments. Scored each on effort, value, dependencies and the decision a human keeps.
Feb 24Key-Person Risk ReviewListed knowledge held by one person: the press plan rules, the portal quirks of each customer, and the history behind each control plan.
Feb 25SequencingPut release intake and premium freight control first, since every later step needs clean release data and recorded causes.
Feb 26Value ModelBuilt low and high cases for each initiative. Separated hours, freight spend, recharges, press hours and tooling cash, so nothing is counted twice.
Feb 27Internal QAChecked every figure against interview notes, the freight log, the EDI archive and the complaint history.
- Week 5Mar 2 to Mar 4
Synthesis
Findings checked with the people who do the work.
People: Julien Masson, Isabelle Faure, Karim Benali
Daily detail · 3 days
Mar 2Deliverable AssemblyAssembled the War Map in three chapters: operational reality, findings and implementation plan.
Mar 3Validation with Department LeadsWalked through the process maps and the register. One correction: plant 2 runs 26 presses, not 24. Totals updated.
Julien Masson · Supply Chain ManagerMar 4Final QARe-checked totals, dates and dependencies after the correction. Prepared handover material.
- Week 5 · HandoverMar 5 to Mar 6
Handover
War Map delivered and first initiatives agreed with leadership.
People: Philippe Garnier, Nathalie Roussel
Daily detail · 2 days
Mar 5Pre-Handover ReviewReviewed the findings and the order of work. Agreed that every premium freight booking needs a recorded cause from day one.
Philippe Garnier · CEOMar 6War Map DeliveryDelivered the War Map and the implementation plan. Named an owner for each initiative and set the monthly review.
Philippe Garnier · CEO
What We Heard
“Every Monday I compare this week's release with last week's, line by line. If I miss a change, we find out at the dock.”
“The plan is right at eight in the morning. By eleven a customer has moved something and I start again.”
“We pay for the express truck either way. Whose fault it was comes up three months later, when nobody can prove anything.”
“The customer wants the D3 in 24 hours. Half of that goes to finding which resin lot went into which box.”
“I sign premium freight every week. I could not tell you what caused most of it.”
Team Members Interviewed
Systems Accessed
Strategy Session · 30 min
A real engagement is scoped in the Strategy Session and may begin with a War Map or a bounded Feasibility Sprint.