The inventory management system, Slim4, will save the company approximately half a million euros per year. Moreover the service level will be improved considerably. Jan van der Dussen, project manager at Sligro, says “We have analysed the potential benefits; the stock will be reduced by between 15 – 20% if we hold customer service at the same level.” In the event, the first group of products to benefit from Slim4 showed a stock reduction of 30%.
Having consolidated this position, Sligro is using the cash released to move its service level up progressively from a current 95% to 98%. The stock administrators are simply increasing the service level parameters in Slim4 to provide a revised ordering pattern, taking into account seasonal influences and recent developments. However, while ongoing products can be confidently controlled in this way, when it comes to new product introductions, and this is currently running at around 400 additional products a month, some manual input is necessary. Dussen says "Our stock administrators use the features provided in Slim4 to plan these additional products, initially with a boost in demand, then falling off slightly to a sustainable level, at which point Slim4 will take over full control".
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