The supply chain starts at the store

That's the view from RedPrairie's CEO, John Jazwiec, who declared the traditional supply chain dead at his company's RedShift users conference.

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 5/3/2007

Once, the warehouse and distribution center was the focal point for supply chain execution companies like RedPrairie that made a living implementing warehouse management systems (WMS).

Now, it’s all about the store, according to John Jazwiec, RedPrairie’s CEO. “Traditional supply chains are dead!” Jazwiec declared in Orlando this week at RedShift, the supply chain execution provider’s 10^th annual user conference.

Just in case someone wasn’t paying attention, Jazwiec repeated himself, adding, “At RedPrairie, we believe the supply chain must start with the customer experience in the store and work backward to the manufacturing plant.”

What Jazwiec was really talking about is the demand-driven supply chain, a model that turns the traditional model of manufacturing a product according to an estimate of what consumers may want and then pushing it out to retail stores on its head. In the demand-driven supply chain, manufacturing, warehousing and transportation processes are put in motion when a consumer makes a purchase.

RedPrairie calls this approach E2e, which is shorthand for end-to-end.

The solution set includes six areas of application that link what goes on in the store back to transportation, distribution and manufacturing. They include:

1.) Workforce optimization in the stores. Analyses sales and traffic patterns to make sure the store is staffed with the right people in the right departments at the right time.

2.) Demand signaling. Looks at point-of-sale data and store inventory levels to drive replenishment.

3.) Manufacturing solutions. Enable the just-in-time, just-in-sequence delivery of raw materials, parts and components to the line.

4.) Warehouse and transportation management solutions. The bread and butter of supply chain execution companies.

5.) Last mile transportation solutions. Synchronize and optimize route deliveries to consumers.

6.) Management solutions. Optimize stockroom operations or what Jazwiec called the last yard of the supply chain. “Our vision is to get product from the DC to the store shelf with a very small stockroom or no stockroom at all,” he says.

What they all add up to is a bet that the retail supply chain is ready to evolve. “It’s all about the store,” Jazwiec said.