How TEM Catez Achieved 19% Packaging Savings with ERA Group

Market Pressures and the Need for Efficiency

TEM Catez d.o.o. has spent decades shaping the future of switches and sockets, and with exports representing approximately 66% of its sales, the company has grown into an increasingly significant European player. That growth, however, brought new challenges: volatile construction cycles, sustained pricing pressures, and a constant need for innovation.

Leadership recognised that maintaining competitiveness would require looking carefully beneath the surface of the company's cost structures - without any compromise on quality. The question was where to start, and how to do it without disrupting a business that depended on precision and reliability at every stage of production and delivery.

Competitive pressures force us to develop new products while simultaneously optimising existing ones. We chose ERA Group because of their structured methodology and the fact that they do not just offer advice - they actually implement improvements alongside us.

Why ERA Group?

TEM Catez elected to review two spend areas: packaging and waste materials (non-ferrous metals). The waste materials review quickly demonstrated that existing processes were already efficient and that no meaningful improvements were available. For TEM, this finding itself carried value - it was confirmation of ERA's transparency and integrity, and evidence that the consultants would not manufacture savings opportunities where none existed.

In packaging, concrete opportunities emerged rapidly. ERA specialists Marko Skolaris, Armin Pinl, and Uros Kravos set out the approach plainly: after an initial review of prices they could not yet confirm whether costs were at an appropriate level, but through a structured process they would develop a solution ensuring TEM would never pay more than the optimal market price - with quality and efficiency left entirely intact. It was a comprehensive approach TEM had not previously undertaken.

From Insight to Implementation

The analysis covered every packaging category, comparing costs, supplier terms, and supplier capabilities in full. Market benchmarking exposed pricing anomalies and inefficiencies across corrugated cardboard, solid cardboard, and other packaging items. Supplier negotiations introduced simplified and improved contracts in which material costs were indexed to market benchmarks - securing long-term pricing competitiveness rather than a one-off reduction.

Implementation was phased deliberately, prioritising the categories with the greatest saving potential first and thereby relieving pressure on TEM's internal resources. New suppliers were introduced carefully, accompanied by technical rationalisations that improved the efficiency of packaging processes. Throughout the entire process, quality and service levels were not touched.

There was never any question of optimising costs at the expense of quality. Packaging is critical - not just for protecting products in transit, but for presentation on retail shelves. It had to remain impeccable.

Managing Change and Ensuring Continuity

One of the more significant challenges was guaranteeing uninterrupted production while new suppliers and packaging solutions were introduced in phases. ERA managed this risk by maintaining safety stocks throughout the transition, coordinating deliveries with both existing and incoming suppliers simultaneously, and running pilot projects with article sampling to ensure new materials met every technical and marketing requirement before full adoption.

This structured approach to change management gave TEM the confidence that operational performance would not come under pressure during the transition - a commitment ERA delivered on in full.

Results: 19% in Measurable Savings

Best-buy analysis had shown a saving potential of between 36% and 46% across key categories (corrugated cardboard: 36.7%; solid cardboard: 46.4%). TEM chose a balanced solution that delivered 19% in overall savings - a meaningful reduction achieved without increasing supplier complexity. Improved supplier contracts are now indexed to material market costs, new suppliers have been introduced without any disruption to production, and technical rationalisations have reduced process costs alongside the direct material savings. Quality of service and product presentation have been maintained or improved.

For TEM, packaging was for a long time simply a cost of doing business. With ERA it has become a source of strategic advantage. ERA finds savings where you least expect them - so that costs become opportunities for growth.