Royal Doulton Bringing visibility to the supply chain
With the close of the 20th century, Royal Doulton decided to change its retail system to not only ensure year 2000 compliance but to enjoy the benefits of introducing a level of automation with suppliers. The new JDA solution was brought in to increase speed and accuracy, reduce overhead costs required to manage the process and specifically improve order turnaround with suppliers by one week.
Astech Consultants Limited, a company that specialises in the JDA consultancy arena, approached Royal Doulton and introduced their new supply chain management solution called b2b4retail. This resulted in Royal Doulton undertaking a cost-benefits study to evaluate the potential savings that might accrue from implementing the solution.
The Key Savings Identified Included:
- Automatic transfer of orders to vendors with no additional manual work releasing branch merchandising staff effort for more pro-active duties
- increased order throughput and therefore reduced replenishment time by an average of half a week for the major suppliers, in turn allowing a reduction in stock levels
- a one-off gain of 60% of a week’s agency intake value due to reducing the major suppliers’ lead time
- a reduction in stock-out of product and therefore an increased opportunity for sale
- the customer payment for 60% of agency sales will be received on average half a week earlier due to better availability of stock
- financial savings in stationery and postage which will outweigh the additional communication cost
- reduced mail handling and data entry, releasing financial staff effort for more proactive work
As the UK retail arm of Royal Doulton operates without a warehouse facility, the company receives thousands of individual purchase orders every week - each of which has to be printed, checked, and batched according to supplier before being posted to the relevant manufacturer.
Benefits
Tom Kelt is convinced of b2b4retail’s benefit:
“Given our initial outlay we would have recouped our investment within the first quarter if all six suppliers had got on board straight away. As it is, five of the six re now on board and we have achieved our original objectives very comfortably. The result is improved customer service and a considerable reduction in administrative overhead.”
Royal Doulton is a diverse manufacturer and retailer of tableware, crystal ware, figurines and giftware with annual sales of around £190m spread through eighty countries across the globe and with a total workforce of about 6,000 people worldwide. The company’s retail operation comprises over 350 outlets of which over 200 are in the UK with others in the USA, Canada, Australia and the Far East.
Key Benefits
- Improve lead times
- Strengthen existing investment
- Improve visibility, integrity & flexibility in supply chain relationships
- One supplier for total solution across the entire customer/supplier base
- More cost effective than traditional EDI
- Hosted environment available if required
- Potential for immediate ROI