Infor®, the industry cloud company, has announced that El Florido supermarket chain has chosen Infor WMS (Warehouse Management System) solution to optimize its operating times throughout the supply chain. The solution will be implemented by Infor partner Cerca Technology, a leader in cutting-edge technology for supply chains in Latin America.
The supermarket chain, located in Baja California Norte in Mexico, dedicated to the commercialization of meat-based products and groceries, aims to streamline the times for the assortment in stores, increase the fill rate, a key indicator that establishes the percentage of the merchandise delivered of any given order, obtain a complete visibility of the inventory, and support branches with effective sourcing.
The business that began as a meat distributor grew to the point of needing to diversify its portfolio, including other product lines. This facilitated its expansion in cities including Tijuana, Tecate, Rosarito, Ensenada and Mexicali, up to 50 branches.
To meet the needs of all branches, the company established a logistics operator in 2016, DFL Logistics, a company that manages inventory for all logistics operations that supply all branches, for both groceries and perishable products.
With El Florido’s constant growth, it was necessary to implement a leading solution to digitize all processes for supply, demand planning, storage, and the delivery of orders.
The challenges faced in distribution centers
Due to the growth and limitations of its internal development, several errors were detected in the distribution centers such as: the existence of phantom inventory, codes that were in a transfer state, and difficulties in filling orders, among others.
Therefore, the company decided to look for a solution to overcome the challenges that arose. Although its system was friendly and functional, it was overstretched to efficiently handle the expanding operation. The developers tried to find temporary solutions within the system, but this resulted in a repetitive process that affected the timing and delivery of orders. These problems became more frequent, inconsistencies began to severely impact the operation.
In addition, the procedure for measuring productivity in the distribution center was very complex, making it difficult to optimize processes in the operation. All tracking was done manually and relied on basic estimating tools. This involved a considerable investment of time.
How Infor WMS and Cerca Technology benefit El Florido
Through references and searches, the team in charge of the project at El Florido identified all the needs to be covered with a WMS. Misael Verduzco, logistics manager of DFL Logistics, highlighted that “the use of tools such as WMS are of great help, because it takes advantage of automation, reduces operating costs, increases efficiency, improves responsiveness and decreases complexity for effective distribution center management.”
“We are confident that this new implementation will be successful. As inventory accuracy improves, the entire supply chain will benefit,” He added. “What impressed us the most was the attention we received from Cerca Technology from the beginning. Follow-up, interest and participation were crucial in making the decision. Even when visiting our operations, they understood our needs closely, which resulted in a proposal very grounded to reality. We always felt supported.”
Infor WMS provides real-time information, which helps El Florido measure processes and productivity accurately, centralize procedures, and provide greater flexibility in the planning and attention of orders from its customers. Likewise, it is expected to achieve control of cargo transport units (containers) and manage the registration in its warehouses, from entry to unloading.
Wilson Ortiz, manager of professional services at Cerca Technology, pointed out that “once the team knew the interface of Infor WMS, and observed that it was intuitive and easy to use, adapting to it was more seamless versus competing solutions.”
When referring to the future of the operation, Verduzco and his team are aware that implementation of Infor WMS is only the first step of the digital transformation to reach the performance and processes that are required and integrate a system that supports transportation management.
Alejandro Luna, country manager of Infor Mexico, explains that “Infor WMS will benefit the activities of the distribution centers of El Florido in an integral way. This solution combines warehouse assortment with integrated labor management and analytics to reduce complexity and enable optimized operational execution. Infor WMS is a state-of-the-art, best-in-class warehouse operations solution around the world, designed with ease of setup and intuitive use in mind.”
DFL Logistics has a team of more than 210 people, while the El Florido business group, as a whole, employs approximately 3,500 people. El Florido has two distribution centers of 10,000 square meters each, where 80 percent of the space is destined to groceries and the remaining 20 percent to perishable products. The company handles a total of 2,500 SKUs in groceries and 120 SKUs in perishables. Its transport fleet has 27 vehicles, 42 boxes and 8 double-trailer equipment.
