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When Garrett Motion began its planning transformation, the company was facing an all-too-familiar challenge of being short on connectivity, not expertise.
Planning processes were fragmented, teams worked in silos, and spreadsheets had become the glue holding everything together. Like many manufacturers, Garrett Motion had built homegrown tools over the years, but those tools weren't communicating with one another, making it increasingly difficult to respond to a business environment that was changing faster than ever.
“The challenge that we had was a supply chain that was disconnected, very silo-driven. We wanted to get all of that away and have an ecosystem that's one and drive one single source of truth for the organization.”
Ettiene Devries
Senior Director Global Supply Chain Excellence, Strategy & IBP, Garrett Motion
For Etienne Devries, Senior Director of Supply Chain Excellence, Strategy & IBP, the objective was clear.
“The challenge that we had was a supply chain that was disconnected, very silo-driven,” he explained. “We wanted to get all of that away and have an ecosystem that's one and drive one single source of truth for the organization.”
Five years later, that transformation has reshaped not only Garrett Motion's planning capabilities but also the way the company is organized.
Breaking down the silos
Garrett Motion supplies directly into the automotive industry, where customer expectations are uncompromising. Service, cash flow, profitability, and operational efficiency all have to move together.
“The customer is not going to come back if you're not delivering what he wants,” Devries said.
Yet disconnected planning processes made that increasingly difficult.
Planning relied heavily on spreadsheets and local tools developed independently across the business. Each function optimized its own area, but there was no integrated view of the entire supply chain.
Like many organizations embarking on digital transformation, Garrett Motion wasn't simply replacing software. It was redesigning how planning worked.
The company selected o9 after evaluating multiple vendors, attracted by the platform's ability to connect planning end-to-end through a common data model and Enterprise Knowledge Graph.
“We saw the benefit around what the platform could bring to the planning, the visibility that it brings, the Enterprise Knowledge Graph where we could connect everything,” Devries said.
But from the beginning, the team understood this would only be the first phase of a much longer journey.
Why blueprints should evolve
One lesson emerged quickly during implementation.
The blueprint was never going to stay static.
As Garrett Motion mapped its planning processes and interviewed subject matter experts, new dependencies continued to emerge.
“Once you start changing things, then all of a sudden these hidden supply chains pop up here, pop up there,” Devries recalled.
Rather than treating the original design as fixed, the project evolved alongside the business.
“The blueprint is a living document,” he said.
That flexibility became one of the characteristics he valued most throughout the implementation.
“There wasn't this rigidness... It was like, okay, this is what we said. This is what we have to do. This is how we're going to do it.”
The ability to adapt the design while maintaining momentum helped the company move forward without losing sight of its long-term objectives.
From 13 planning teams to three Centers of Excellence
Perhaps the most significant transformation happened not inside the platform, but inside the organization.
Before o9, Garrett Motion operated with 13 independent supply chain teams across its manufacturing locations. Each team managed demand planning, supply planning, inventory, customer service, and supplier planning locally.
After connecting the global network through o9, Garrett Motion reorganized around regional Centers of Excellence.
“We then actually created centers of excellence,” Devries said. “Where we used to work with 13 supply chain teams, I now work with three centers of excellence.”
Planning activities were consolidated into regional organizations responsible for demand planning, supply planning, customer service, inventory management, and vendor planning across multiple plants.
At the same time, the company strengthened its SIO process around what Devries called the "one number principle."
“That one number from a demand perspective drove the whole organization.”
That shared view improved visibility across demand, operations, inventory, and service, allowing decisions to be made from the same planning foundation.
“We created the connectivity across our network... connected to the customer, connected to your supplier.”
Better visibility leads to better decisions
Several years into the transformation, Garrett Motion has seen measurable improvements across many of the metrics that originally justified the investment.
“We have seen improvement on almost all of them,” Devries said.
One of the biggest changes has been visibility.
Rather than relying on fragmented planning processes, the business now understands where improvements are still needed because the planning platform makes those gaps visible.
Customer satisfaction has also improved.
Using Net Promoter Score specifically for supply chain and logistics, Garrett Motion has seen year-over-year improvements as customers recognize greater responsiveness and more reliable service.
“We have seen year over year a significant improvement from our customer base, saying... you are getting better at being responsive.”
The company has also strengthened working capital management, improved inventory visibility, and created earlier visibility into excess and obsolete inventory, allowing commercial teams to act proactively with customers before issues escalate.
Winning adoption from the start
Looking back, Devries believes one lesson outweighs almost every technical consideration.
Get end users involved early.
“We have the tendency as human beings to say, I know how to do my job,” he said.
For that reason, Garrett Motion focused heavily on involving planners throughout the implementation rather than introducing the system after decisions had already been made.
“Make them part of the solution so that they have skin in the game.”
Master data also became an important focus area.
“Master data is master data. Every organization struggles with it.”
Rather than waiting for perfect data, Garrett Motion concentrated on identifying the critical master data needed to support planning while allowing improvements to continue in parallel.
Preparing for the next generation of supply chains
The company's planning transformation also positioned it for a significant shift in its own business.
Historically known for turbochargers, Garrett Motion is expanding into zero-emission technologies, introducing new products, new suppliers, and much more complex bills of material.
“With that comes the complexity,” Devries said.
The company expects the planning platform to provide the flexibility needed to manage that evolution without redesigning its operating model from scratch.
At the same time, Devries sees artificial intelligence becoming the next major capability.
“With AI, things change quickly...So you need to be able to do that quick analysis, understand where things are. AI technologies are going to be a game-changer for any organization that adopts them quickly.”
Ettiene Devries
Senior Director Global Supply Chain Excellence, Strategy & IBP, Garrett Motion
“Things change quickly,” he said. “So you need to be able to do that quick analysis, understand where things are.”
Rather than replacing planners, AI will help them respond within minutes or hours instead of days or weeks.
“Those technologies are going to be a game-changer for any organization that adopts them quickly.”
Building for a world that never stands still
For Devries, the biggest lesson from Garrett Motion's transformation is adaptability, not software.
“The VUCA world is a reality,” he said.
Markets shift overnight. Customer expectations continue to rise. Supply chains become more interconnected every year.
Success depends on building planning capabilities that evolve alongside those changes.
“You need to be able to partner with somebody that you know is not rigid,” Devries said. “Make sure that you partner with an organization with planning tools that can change as quickly as the environment outside... because nothing's going to stay stable.”
For Garrett Motion, that adaptability has become just as valuable as the planning platform itself.
About the authors
The Editorial Team, o9
A multidisciplinary collective of editors, strategists, technologists, and former executives with experience across Fortune 500 companies and top consulting firms. Grounded in o9’s mission to help enterprises make faster, better decisions through the power of AI-driven planning and execution software, the team shares clear, practical insights on digital transformation, supply chain, and enterprise planning to support business leaders in navigating complexity and driving change.
