RE: COVER STORY
Today it handles around 2,000 purchase orders a week, but the system has adapted to this leading to “no major increase in back office staffing levels to process the additional business,” says ediTRACK. Dan Monaghan, head of supply chain operations at New Look, commented: “We took the decision to develop a
number of distribution hubs in July 2008, and they were up and running by September that year because we didn’t need to make any major system changes it was all handled within the ediTRACK platform. This gives us complete visibility into the distribution centres which helps trading decisions as to whether we should switch supplies from sea to air or re-route to one or other of the hubs.”
Horsemeat backlash Waer Systems is a leading supply chain and integration provider and says it “has seen noticeable increases in enquiries from the retail sector following the recent horsemeat scandal and the collapse of the factory in India”. Sales director, David Snelson says: “We have seen a significant rise in enquiries on our traceability solutions
BRC members are aiming to use 100% certified sustainable
palm oil (CSPO) by the end of 2015
from some of the key players in the retail sector, for example, Marks & Spencer who are looking for ‘field to table’ traceability, and a homewares manufacturer and distributor that is looking to track individual shipments using active and passive RFID tags.” The company also found that although traceability and system to system connectivity are relatively well established between class-leading retailers and their tier one suppliers, traceability becomes more of an issue, however, when it comes to third and fourth tier suppliers. As an example, Snelson says: “It’s relatively easy for Laura Ashley to connect production and logistics systems with their manufacturing partner as they’re only a mile down the road, with an established, successful trading relationship. But how do they track work in progress and finished goods from a tier three supplier in Jakarta which is a small family business providing soap stone carvings?” The answer Waer has come up with is to create a cloud-based solution across multi-device platforms. “We all have phones, a lot of us have tablets, and access to the internet is almost effortless. Through this mechanism, any supplier, irrespective of their location, time zone or IT capability can easily interact with a major retailer and provide them with all the information they need for a successful, collaborative trading relationship in seconds,” says Snelson.
Ethical and Environmental
For ethical and environmental issues home improvement retailer B&Q uses supply chain management solution, Sedex and two internal data management tools. For business related matters it uses a tool called SAP; for transport B&Q use internally developed management tools which are the same for waste which is also linked to the reporting required by B&Q’s waste manager for the business. B&Q also captures data on WEEE, packaging volumes and batteries, for instance. B&Q stores sell over 40,000 different globally sourced products. To track these the retailer uses a programme called QUEST (Quality, Ethics, Environment and Safety) which requires suppliers to demonstrate that they have a robust supply chain
30 RETAIL ENVIRONMENT | JUNE 2013
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