About ReBuS
Hidden opportunities have been discovered!
On 19th May 2011 a large number of retailers gathered in the inspiring setting of the Innovation Centre of Vanderlande Industries at Veghel, The Netherlands, to be informed in which fields of retail hidden opportunities are still to be found.
Under the flag of the Inventory Magement Competence Center (IMCC) Slimstock Retail, Rebus and Vanderlande Industries have organized this special meeting with inspiring presentations by leading retailers who proudly presented their realized targets in the field of Supply Chain optimization, smart DC solutions and outsourcing of retail outlets.
Marcel van Groningen spoke frankly about challenges in Supply Chain that Rituals encountered in its first life-cycle, likewise about the way in which Rituals managed their present steep growth with, amongst others, Slim4 optimization software. Wim Griffioen of Makro Nederland openly spoke about Makro Nederland’s recent multichannel approach and did not hesitate to mention some of its bottlenecks. Gert Bos described with enthusiasm the role their ‘operational excellence’ strategy for Supply Chain played in recent, difficult, years and how it now helps them in their present growth of business. Likewise DA convinced the listeners of the need for savings that were brought by the mechanization of their DC in Zwolle, this in combination with stock reduction and an increase in service level.
Chairman Walther Ploos van Amstel elaborately provided the event with special logistic news items, critical questions and the occasional joke, and concluded the official part of the event with the item of RetailLeaks. In this Walther enlightened in a concise and still detailed manner a number of business cases. Vanderlande Industries opened with a case about the mechanizing the wharehousing of Teso.com. It was made clear to the audience that a multichannel approach puts substantially different demands on DC-logistics than shop supply. To the avid listeners ReBuS offered a well-apprised case of brown & white goods retailer BCC who managed to realize substantial savings on labour cost by using the Softbrick workforce managementtool. And this without loss of sales.
Slimstock Retail explained how retailers can obtain higher turnover with fewer stocks by optimizing supply at every service level, as well as the profits to be made by automated shopreplenishment.
Assessment indicated that retailers present would like to see a sequel to the event, preferably with even more detailed hidden opportunities on the agenda.
Vanderlande Industries, ReBuS and Slimstock Retail will oblige and shortly communicate when the second ‘Hidden Opportunities in Retail’ shall take place.
Veghel, 20th May 2011