Big Data for Garden Centres

Between the months of April and June, is the busiest time of year for Plantasjen. In these twelve weeks, the Norwegian garden centre chain makes 85 per cent of its total annual profits, mainly with the sale of seasonal goods. Foun-ded in 1986 in Norway, Plantasjen now operates 114 branches in Norway, Sweden, Finland - in these two countries it's called Plantagen - and Ireland. With an annual turnover of around € 433 mio, the company, with its headquarter in Kjeller, Norway, is the biggest garden centre chain in Scandinavia. The range consists of 30 000 products.
In the course of a comprehensive reorganisation of the business processes, Plantasjen was looking for a solution in the supply chain management (SCM) whereby it could simplify its stock management. Excess stock needed to be avoided, dispatch managed centrally and company-wide and the shelf availability increased. Moreover, the garden centre chain was hoping for better quality analyses, in order to make faster decisions with regard to demand planning.Plantasjen finally found the right solution with the SCM software from Relex Solutions. First of all the SCM system was tested and adjusted in a number of branches. The company-wide roll-out was completed in the same year. Following that, the roll-out was implemented in the warehouse.

The targets were defined at the beginning of the project: stocks were to be reduced by approximately 25 percent and sales increased by three to four per cent. These expectations were considerably surpassed. Within the first 24 months the stocks in the branches were reduced by 32 per cent and sales rose by eight per cent. In addition, the availability of products delivered from the central warehouse went up by twelve per cent. Neither the short shelf life of a lot of goods, nor the strongly varying climatic conditions in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Ireland are a problem anymore, thanks to the country-wide installed software. In the meantime, the branch logistics is completely integrated into the central warehouse's purchasing department. As a result, the level of service in many categories has risen by more than ten per cent.
Furthermore, the software enables a more precise demand forecasting and an automatic dispatch in real time. The…