Uses distribution management, retail intelligence solutions to increase supply chain visibility
Minneapolis — January 12, 2004 — Stage Stores, a high-volume distribution operation with a significant amount of cross docking, said it has improved its distribution operations and increased supply chain visibility with Distribution Management and Active Retail Intelligence (ARI) solutions from Retek Inc.
Stage Stores said it originally implemented the software to gain timely and accurate information to identify potential problems in its supply chain before they impacted operations. The software has enabled the distributor to increase its distribution center (DC) throughput and reduce DC trouble freight resolution time.
"We had very good controls within our distribution center, but we wanted to take our supply chain to the next level," said Jeff Kish, senior vice president and chief information officer at Stage Stores.
He explained that the Retek ARI event management notifications enabled his company to address problems in advance of the merchandise hitting the receiving dock. After implementing the Retek solutions, Stage Stores' DC trouble freight resolution time has been reduced by over 50 percent. He added that the availability of timely supply chain information across the organization has also helped Stage Stores increase the use of advanced shipment notices (ASNs), which he said has contributed to the efficiency of allocations and improvement in the DC cycle time.
"Without RDM, our buyers were forced to make a decision early in the procurement process whether the entire order would be shipped pack-by-store or bulk, where the entire order would be inducted into our automated sorters for distribution," said Gough Grubbs, senior vice president, Distribution & Logistics at Stage Stores. "This limited our ability to maximize opportunities for cross-docking efficiencies. Because RDM matches each carton's unique content to the allocation, we now have a 'middle ground' where the system assigns 'some' whole cartons to a store just as if they were packed-by-store, and only sends the residual cartons to the automated sorters for processing. This has been a major contributing factor to the improved throughput time."
Stage Stores said it expanded the use of Retek ARI to improve the efficiency of other business processes such as product recalls, store-to-store transfers, purchase order approvals and price changes.
"Retek ARI enabled us to build controls in key areas that deliver improved operating results," said Kish. "The flexibility of Retek ARI allowed us to customize our specific business rules and select the applications we wanted to incorporate. With increased information shared in real-time throughout the organization, Stage Stores has received value across the business."
