Juniper Innovations’ consultants co-wrote part of ISRetail’s warehouse management system, which is a best of breed solution ISRetail sells and promotes. This system was installed in Jerónimo Martins, Portugal.
Project background
Jerónimo Martins own and manage the largest retail grocery (food and non-food) chain in Portugal. They have several brands and companies within their group. Brands include Pingo Doce and Fero Nova.
ISRetail’s warehouse management system was implemented in Jerónimo Martins during 2002. It was chosen because it can manage a large number and volume throughput of products, plus specialises in controlling warehouse labour, order management, inventory auditing and batch control tasks across a wide variety of products including fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, dairy, groceries, beverages, detergents, cosmetics and household appliances. On top of that the warehouse system successfully interfaces to SAP, can uniquely interface to a large variety of hand-held, radio frequency, RFID and other hardware making it device independent.
Juniper Innovations’ and ISRetail consultants were used on the project to optimise logistics processes and improve logistics technology excellence.
Azambuja Distribution Centre background
The warehouse management system was implemented across a number of sites including the Azambuja Distribution Centre that contains multiple, separate warehouses and operations. This meant coordinating, managing and controlling operations across 4 major brands including distribution and shipping to each brand’s own group of stores from corner shops to large out of town supermarkets.
The four brands have very different characteristics, from the type of product they sell through to the related inventory physical storage conditions and working methods.
The problem
The client required advice in a number of areas:
- An IT strategic platform supporting the entire supply chain over a 7+ year period
- Software designs supporting all their business brands now and for the future
- Knowledge of how to integrate with back end solutions such as SAP
- Immediate development and deployment as the current solution could no longer support business processes
- Improved IT service levels across all supply chains
- Business analysis support to help design new processes supporting the development of new warehouse buildings
The solution
Juniper Innovations provided advice and recommendations based on:
- Vendor and product knowledge
- Industry experience
- Proven rapid deployment methodology
- Risk management experience
The benefits
The client received:
- A platform supporting the business over the next 7+ years
- Service design and handover to existing IT operational teams enabling in-house and third party support for a major system
- Risk management advice
- Deployment methodology advice including project governance and communications
- Greater ROI compared to other bench marked solutions
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