Kearney · Tech Consulting · Medium · 25-35 min

European Manufacturer's Nearshore Control Tower

European Manufacturer's Nearshore Control Tower is a medium Kearney tech consulting case interview that runs 25-35 min. A European industrial OEM — €3.4B revenue, plants in Germany and northern Italy — is moving 30% of final assembly to Poland and Portugal over 24 months to cut energy and labor cost. A strong answer works through 5 phases: Define the control tower by the decision it changes; Baseline the €46M: how much is forecast error, supplier lateness, and plant inflexibility; Pick the data scope that a mid-size supplier will actually send; Choose build vs buy against the 24-month move: a thin tower on the existing ERP vs a new planning platform; Set the KPI bridge.

Last updated 2026-09-05

The brief

A European industrial OEM — €3.4B revenue, plants in Germany and northern Italy — is moving 30% of final assembly to Poland and Portugal over 24 months to cut energy and labor cost. Planning still runs on a weekly MRP export and email. Inbound freight expedites cost €46M last year. The COO wants a 'digital control tower' before the first line moves, and has €8M and two planners' worth of patience. Suppliers are mid-size and will not join a portal that takes a quarter to learn. You advise on what to build, what to buy, and which number has to move.

How to approach it

  1. Define the control tower by the decision it changes — expedite, reallocate a shortage, slip a customer — not by a software category
  2. Baseline the €46M: how much is forecast error, supplier lateness, and plant inflexibility
  3. Pick the data scope that a mid-size supplier will actually send — ASN and inventory, not a full planning collaboration suite
  4. Choose build vs buy against the 24-month move: a thin tower on the existing ERP vs a new planning platform
  5. Set the KPI bridge — expedite cost, schedule adherence, inventory at the new plants — and the week-1 process with the planners

What a strong answer does

  • Anchors the tower to expedite cost and the Poland/Portugal ramp, not a vision deck
  • Designs for suppliers who live in email and EDI, with a fallback that does not stall the move
  • Refuses a 18-month APS implementation that lands after the lines have moved
  • Gives planners a daily exception list rather than another dashboard
  • Splits €8M into integration, a small license, and the process change — and says what is out of scope

Red flags interviewers score down

  • Recommends a full supply-chain cloud suite before the first ASN is reliable
  • Ignores supplier adoption and assumes API connectivity
  • Measures success as 'tower deployed' with no expedite or service number
  • Centralizes planning in a way that blinds the new plants

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