Sample War Map
Specialty chemicals War Map
Specialty chemicals formulator · 2 sites near Lyon · 160 employees
Regulatory documents, lab release and dangerous goods paperwork all run through three people. Customers wait 6.5 working days for an SDS or REACH statement, and raw-material increases reach indexed invoices about nine weeks late.
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.
Specialty chemicals formulator · 2 sites near Lyon · 160 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 ten departments, two production sites and six systems. The final week covers validation and handover.
Five-week sample timeline · five work blocks
One row per week. Open a week to see each working day.
- Week 1Feb 2 to Feb 6
Regulatory, lab and dock
Scope set. Document requests, batch release and dangerous goods shipping shadowed on site.
People: Hélène Marchand, Thierry Vasseur, Nadia Benali, Julien Roux, Camille Perrin, Karim Haddad
Daily detail · 5 days
Feb 2Kickoff + Scope AlignmentAgreed scope across both sites. Chose five flows to shadow first: regulatory requests, lab release, ADR shipping, raw-material pricing and technical questions.
Hélène Marchand · CEOSage X3ExcelFeb 3Regulatory Desk ShadowFollowed 19 customer requests in one day. 4 quoted a customer article code that had to be matched to a trade name in Excel. 3 asked for an SDS language version that had to be generated first.
Nadia Benali · Head of Regulatory AffairsOutlookSDS toolSharePointFeb 4Lab Release WalkthroughObserved testing, result checks and release. Results live in the LIMS, release is keyed in Sage X3, and certificates of analysis are retyped into 340 customer-specific Excel templates.
Julien Roux · QC Lab ManagerLIMSSage X3ExcelFeb 5Order Desk and Customer ChasersCounted why customers call. Top three reasons: a missing certificate of analysis, an SDS never received, and a delivery date pushed back by a batch held in quarantine.
Camille Perrin · Customer Service LeadOutlookSage X3Feb 6Dangerous Goods DockAbout 70% of shipments are dangerous goods. ADR data is missing in Sage X3 for 30% of items, so Karim copies UN number, class, packing group and tunnel code from SDS section 14 into an Excel template.
Karim Haddad · Shipping Lead and ADR Safety AdviserSage X3SDS toolExcel - Week 2Feb 9 to Feb 13
Purchasing, finance and technical service
Price, margin and technical-answer flows mapped. 4 manual bridges between Sage X3 and other tools confirmed.
People: Olivier Garnier, Sandrine Lefèvre, Mathieu Colin, Élodie Fournier, Romain Dubois
Daily detail · 5 days
Feb 9Raw-Material Price TrackingAbout 40 supplier price notices a month land in Olivier's inbox. He logs them in an Excel tracker. Standard costs in Sage X3 are updated once a quarter.
Olivier Garnier · Purchasing ManagerExcelOutlookSage X3Feb 10Indexed Contracts and Margin38 contracts carry a raw-material index clause, about €11M of annual sales. Sandrine recalculates them at quarter end. On average, an increase reaches the invoice nine weeks after the supplier notice.
Sandrine Lefèvre · Finance DirectorSage X3ExcelFeb 11Technical Questions DeskAbout 45 customer technical questions a week: dilution, substrate compatibility, storage, product substitution. Answers depend on 2,300 trial reports filed by year and customer name. Average reply: 3.2 working days.
Mathieu Colin · Technical Service ManagerSharePointOutlookFeb 12Planning and Out-of-Spec BatchesPlanning runs in Excel from Sage X3 orders. When a batch fails a test and needs a correction addition, Élodie hears it from the lab by phone and reshuffles the plan by hand.
Élodie Fournier · Production PlannerSage X3ExcelLIMSFeb 13Systems and Data FlowsMapped every link between systems. The LIMS has no interface to Sage X3. The SDS tool holds formulas copied from Sage X3 by hand, last fully checked in 2023.
Romain Dubois · IT and ERP LeadSage X3LIMSSDS toolSharePoint - Week 3Feb 16 to Feb 20
Follow-up shadowing and data analysis
Supplier backlog sampled. 12 weeks of requests and 6 months of release data analysed.
People: Nadia Benali, Julien Roux, Thierry Vasseur
Daily detail · 5 days
Feb 16Supplier SDS Backlog ReviewReviewed 20 of the 61 pending supplier SDS updates with Nadia. 6 change a hazard statement or a concentration limit, which can change the classification of finished products.
Nadia Benali · Head of Regulatory AffairsSDS toolSage X3Feb 17Release Queue on Site 2Followed the release queue on the second site. Results were complete by late morning. Release waited for Julien, who covers both sites and two customer audits a month.
Julien Roux · QC Lab ManagerLIMSSage X3Feb 18Request Log AnalysisAnalysed 12 weeks of the regulatory mailbox: 1,020 requests, an average reply of 6.5 working days, and 22% of requests followed by a customer reminder.
OutlookFeb 19Release and Shipment DataAnalysed 6 months of release timestamps and dispatch records: 1.6 days on average from last result to release, and 31 planned truck departures that left without at least one batch.
Sage X3LIMSFeb 20Process Map ConstructionBuilt process maps for all 16 workflows and compared each one with the written procedure and with what we observed.
- Week 4Feb 23 to Feb 27
Internal Analysis
7 opportunities scored, value modelled, risks and roadmap drafted.
People: No interviews this week
Daily detail · 5 days
Feb 23Opportunity ScoringIdentified 7 opportunities across 4 departments. Scored each by complexity, value, dependencies and who keeps the decision.
Feb 24Key-Person MappingListed the tasks only one person can do today. Found 3 critical single points of failure: regulatory classification, ADR documents and lab release.
Feb 25Value ModelModelled released capacity, margin recovered on indexed contracts and fewer missed departures. Kept capacity, cash timing and margin in separate lines.
Feb 26Roadmap DesignSequenced the work so the SDS version log and ADR master data exist before the flows that depend on them.
Feb 27Internal QAChecked every figure against interview notes and data extracts. Removed overlaps between friction rows.
- Week 5 · HandoverMar 2 to Mar 6
Validation and handover
Findings validated with the people who do the work. War Map delivered and first initiatives agreed.
People: Nadia Benali, Julien Roux, Karim Haddad, Olivier Garnier, Sandrine Lefèvre, Hélène Marchand, Thierry Vasseur
Daily detail · 5 days
Mar 2Validation with Regulatory, Lab and DockWalked through each process map and friction row. Two time estimates were lowered after their review.
Nadia Benali · Head of Regulatory AffairsMar 3Validation of Pricing FiguresChecked the indexation lag and the margin model against last year's invoices. Agreed to show recovered margin separately from released capacity.
Olivier Garnier · Purchasing ManagerSage X3ExcelMar 4Final QAFinal pass on numbers, wording and the roadmap. Prepared handover material.
Mar 5Pre-Handover ReviewReviewed findings and priorities. Confirmed that release, pricing and regulatory sign-off stay with named people in every initiative.
Hélène Marchand · CEOMar 6Final Handover + War Map DeliveryDelivered the War Map. Agreed on the first three initiatives and a named owner for each.
Hélène Marchand · CEO
What We Heard
“Every supplier SDS update could change one of our classifications. I have 61 waiting, and I open the oldest first, hoping nothing urgent sits further down.”
“The batch passed at ten in the morning. It was released the next afternoon because I spent the day in a customer audit.”
“When I'm on holiday, class 8 orders wait for me, or someone copies last week's transport document. I don't like either option.”
“Caustic soda moved 30% in one quarter. Our indexed customers saw it on their invoices about nine weeks later.”
“The answer is usually in a trial report from 2017. Finding it can take longer than running the test again.”
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.