Alrosa has announced the interim results of its project to boost its sales division’s performance, reporting that the pre-sale process in 2018-2021 has helped Alrosa to reduce the amount of diamonds in the work-in-progress inventory by over 4 million carats, and “freed up rough diamonds valued at over $300 million for sale.”
The process, which began in 2018, aimed to accelerate production and reduce the company’s volume of work-in-progress inventories (i.e, diamonds that have left the processing plant but are not yet ready for sale). In three years, until 2021, the “flexible production management system” built by the sales division has helped permanently reduce the duration of the pre-sale production cycle by 30-40%.
As a consequence, the volume of work-in-progress diamonds has decreased by 4.3 million carats by the end of 2021, which “has released $320 million from working capital in 2018-2021.”
Evgeny Agureev, Deputy CEO of Alrosa, commented: “[…] In three years, we have chosen to implement around 300 initiatives, with half of this amount suggested by the sales unit staff itself […].”
