99.99% service level with order fulfilment system for slow movers at PLUS Retail

PLUS Retail, a prominent player in the Dutch food retail market, serves nearly 300 independent PLUS supermarket entrepreneurs. The National Distribution Centre (NDC) in Middenbeemster supplies all of them. PLUS Retail decided to reorganise the supply chain for slow-moving dry groceries and to automate parts of the order picking process. The main challenges were to meet the company’s high service level requirements, efficiency and preconditions for further growth.

Slow moving products are picked via a ‘goods-to-man’ concept. Medium movers are picked via a zone picking concept. In the goods-to-man area 5 QUICKSTORE miniload AS/RS supply 3 order picking stations with slow moving products. Three zone picking areas are placed on either side of the outer miniload AS/RS. Here medium movers are picked from flow racks supported by pick-to-light displays. The flow racks are replenished automatically by the 2 outer miniload AS/RS.

PLUS entrepreneurs are very pleased with the improved service level, family grouping and shelf ready delivery: This results in more efficient shop replenishment. PLUS Retail was able to move product ranges from its Regional Distribution Centres (RDC) to the NDC, resulting in considerable savings both in the RDCs and in the NDC.

"Currently we guarantee a service level of 99.99%. This is an improvement of 90%."
Theo van der Waart, Director PLUS Retail Beemster