Blue Yonder > Case Studies > Building Supply Chain Visibility

Building Supply Chain Visibility

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

Europe

Country

United Kingdom

Product

JDA Warehouse Management

Tech Stack

Warehouse Management System

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)

Applicable Industries

Retail

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation
Warehouse & Inventory Management

Use Cases

Inventory Management
Warehouse Automation

Services

System Integration
Training

About The Customer

B&Q is a major retail brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland, operating 359 stores with more than 40,000 products all under one roof. B&Q is one of the main retail brands under Kingfisher plc, Europe’s leading home improvement retail group. B&Q strives to offer everything its customers need to successfully achieve their home improvement and do-it-yourself (DIY) projects. More than three million customers walk through B&Q’s doors every week. To support its retail program, B&Q needed to transform its logistics function, replacing its manual, mainly paper-based legacy systems, which were no longer suitable for a business that serves more than 150 million customers a year.

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The Challenge

B&Q, a major retail brand under Kingfisher plc, operates 359 stores in the UK and Ireland, offering more than 40,000 products. To support its retail program, B&Q needed to transform its logistics function, replacing its manual, mainly paper-based legacy systems, which were no longer suitable for a business that serves more than 150 million customers a year. This required a flexible warehouse management solution (WMS) to provide real-time information. B&Q wanted to ensure a seamless transition of IT functionality across a network that had been established for 15 years, and needed a solution that would provide it with the ability to manage more than 100,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) across its sites, integrate stock supplied by approximately 600 different vendors, improve inventory accuracy with real-time information and clear visibility of orders, manage cross-dock and flow through platforms, and consolidate and pick stock for each store, which is dispatched daily via 500 trailer loads carrying around 45 pallets of products.

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The Solution

B&Q chose to implement JDA Warehouse Management, part of JDA’s Intelligent Fulfillment™ suite, to five regional consolidation centers that each service between 50 and 100 stores. It is now being rolled out to three distribution centers (DCs). By implementing JDA Warehouse Management, B&Q is reducing costs across its network of three DCs and five regional consolidation centers, ensuring high stock accuracy and improving product availability at its UK stores. With JDA Warehouse Management, B&Q has completely eliminated the previous paper-based system, including all vendor paperwork. The project began in 2008, after B&Q undertook a major review of its supply chain and, with the support of JDA consultants, included six months of process mapping across the consolidation center and DCs. A team of 25 B&Q operatives was recruited to gain a clear understanding of how each site operated and identify potential issues.

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Operational Impact

Reduced costs across the logistics network due to increased efficiency and productivity
Improved inventory accuracy with real-time information and clear visibility of orders
Increased product availability at its stores

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Quantitative Benefit

Anticipated cost savings of approximately €10 million per year
Increased productivity in stores and logistics sites
Improved store inventory accuracy

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