MATCH - Transforming The Supply Chain - A Unified Omnichannel Approach

A UNIFIED, OMNICHANNEL APPROACH A UNIFIED,

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Laurent Vanden Brande, Supply Chain & ICT Director at Supermarché MATCH, delves into the company’s successful supply chain transformation strategy.

Written by Anna McMahon • Produced by Jennifer Davies 2

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Supermarché MATCH is a European supermarket chain, with around 92 supermarkets in Belgium, 115 in France, and 28 in Luxembourg.

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or the last five years, Laurent Vanden Brande has been Supply Chain & ICT Director for Belgium and Luxembourg, focusing on finding a solution to support the transformation of the company’s supply chain operations.

Laurent says, “The idea was to give our customers a better service by reinventing the wheel in terms of our logistics operations. We were not thinking about moving operations, but more along the lines of a full transformation.”

In doing so, Laurent and his team have concentrated their efforts on a number of key strategies including strengthening local anchoring, moving towards unified omnichannel ecommerce, and leveraging new technologies. He explains, “Luxembourg is a small but dynamic country, so we tried to reinforce local anchoring involving third-party partners. We prepared for unified ecommerce (aka omnichannel) enabling operations because we strongly believe that these are the foundations of a good business.”

In terms of leveraging new technologies, Supermarché MATCH makes the distinction between pure logistics technologies and technology related to IT. Laurent says, “Intralogistics technology has been enabled by very narrow aisles (VNA) and STILL manu-up trucks.

It has played an important role in 5

achieving a much higher density in the warehouse and improving productivity. At the same time, a decision was made to fit pickers in the warehouse with Honeywell mobile devices from Reverse IT for receiving and confirming their tasks.

This allows very fine steering of their activities and real-time tracking of their progress. The warehouse management system (WMS) therefore had to be of a newer generation in order to support the transformation and offer more rhythm to the workers.”

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“If you order more stock, but if you order not as fre high volumes and the ass as well as issues with sh It is a catch 22 situation, that we must, and do now

Laurent Vanden Brande, Supply C Supermarché MATCH

, it will work out cheaper, equently, you will have sociated financial burden, helf life and freshness. a real balancing act w, overcome”

Chain & ICT Director at

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Supermarché MATCH has optimised every square metre of its 12,000 sq. m. warehouse space in order to maximise its activities. Laurent continues, “The VNA is one metre thinner than the width of a normal aisle. We are able to put more goods in fewer square metres.

This makes us more efficient and has a positive impact on operational productivity. The starting point for us was to think about all the processes we can put in place to help us be more productive, as well as ‘details’ such as having a super-flat floor. Cherry picking is another more efficient way of working. It offers the opportunity to have operators picking multiple items in a collection process. The less time it takes to move a parcel, the more efficient we are. We prefer to save time and money on our operations so we can invest in the customer experience.”

“STILL is a market leader in trucks technology.

They are very good at what we call intralogistics and have helped us significantly”

Supermarché MATCH has focused on optimising its procurement function by introducing a new approach comprising supply systems supported by AI. Laurent explains, “In retail, it is not traditional procurement. It is more about replenishment.

We already had very complete inventory optimisation, but the new focus gave us a different way of looking at it by using 9

more advanced techniques. The idea is to bring in fact-based decision making, as opposed to using our gut instinct. It is getting right into the objectives behind a replenishment decision. Fast forecasting as a service also brings in an architecture for the inventory management to plug onto a forecasting engine, providing sales predictions for items over a set period of time.

This is designed to evolve, and it is leveraging open source, so there is a huge community of people working on it.”

The ‘fresh part’ of the process now involves fully digital x-docking allocation, where fresh produce

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“We have worked with international business consulting firm, aXialyze, from the beginning. Reverse IT have supported us by offering Honeywell mobile devices, which have dramatically transformed our warehouse operations”

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“We are very satisfied with Openbravo WMS as it has given us the agility we needed at a very competitive cost, allowing us to transform operations in record time” Laurent Vanden Brande, Supply Chain & ICT Director at Supermarché MATCH

Move faster to true omnichannel retail and boost agility for better customer experiences and more resilient operations.

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Single view of clients, prices and promotions across channels.

Mobile POS, clienteling and self-checkout in the stores.

Click and Collect and other omnichannel scenarios.

Centralized, real-time management of all your inventory.

Omnichannel reporting and retail data warehouse integration.

Fully modular and adaptable technology in the cloud.

suppliers deliver in bulk and items are allocated to the different stores overnight, bringing economic advantage by mixing several suppliers together.

Furthermore, Economic Order Quantities mean orders are no longer based on historical decisions. Instead, orders are placed when needed and quantities are chosen with economics in mind, paying close attention to the trade-off between the cost of placing the order and the cost of holding it. Laurent continues, “If you order more stock, it will work out cheaper, but if you order not as frequently, you will have high volumes and the associated financial burden, as well as issues with shelf life and freshness. It is a catch 22 situation, a real balancing act that we must, and do now, overcome.”

The IT ecosystem for any retail business is very complex, combining many different solutions, so when you plug in a new component of a new generation, you can expect to face a number of challenges. How can you take advantage of a new WMS, for example, without having to redo the entire ecosystem?

Laurent answers, “The strategy we used was to mimic as much as possible the historical WMS from an interfacing perspective. The technology was put in place to 13

virtualise the new system, but the backbone does not know it is any different. They still use the same ‘language’ in the interface, which enabled very fast deployment of the project. It is now running with serenity, and on a path that allows us to evolve the interface with the existing ecosystem.”

Laurent started using cloud on the project because it was the only system offering the agility and flexibility he needed. He explains, “Cloud was the best way to give the business the required flexibility. The procurement cycle for a production environment for a mission critical system would usually be months – up to four, five or six months sometimes. In this case, it is more like hours, which has, of course, made the project more agile.”

In addition, the company has built an ecosystem of strong partners to work alongside it on its transformation projects including aXialyze, STILL and Reverse IT. Laurent says, “We have worked with international business consulting firm, aXialyze, from the beginning. We wanted

to find the best company to help us think about our company needs and the best ways to enhance the customer experience. STILL is a market leader in trucks technology.

They are very good at what we call intralogistics and have helped us significantly. I also highly recommend Reverse IT. They have supported us by offering Honeywell mobile devices, which have dramatically transformed our warehouse operations.

All of these operations must be based on the operational excellence of third party logistics. In this logistics case, Arthur Welter.”

In addition, Supermarché MATCH partnered with Openbravo earlier this year in a bid to drive its supply chain transformation and improve customer satisfaction, since the retailer needed a more sophisticated warehouse management solution to support the modernisation of its warehouse operations.

Laurent concludes, “We are very satisfied with Openbravo WMS as it has given us the agility we needed at a very competitive cost, allowing us to transform operations in record time.”

For further information on Supermarché MATCH, visit www.supermarchesmatch.com 14

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www.supermarchesmatch.com

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