Supply chain management vendor RedPrairie has announced a contract win with Belgian supermarket Delhaize to implement its Transportation Management platform.
Delhaize operates 775 stores across Belgium and the new platform will be rolled out at five distribution centres which keep the supermarkets stocked. It is expected the system will manage inbound deliveries and dock usage. The system is expected to be operational by mid-2009.
An online collaboration portal has been set up to enable 1,500 suppliers to schedule their deliveries. Employees at Delhaize’s warehouses will monitor and adapt delivery plans where needed. It is hoped that this will match up inbound deliveries with dock availability.
The chain currently uses a manual planning process that can often leave trucks waiting at the depot for a dock to become available.
Jurgen Limbourg, supply chain coordinator at Delhaize, said: “The RedPrairie Transportation Management solution is an essential part of our new logistics infrastructure. With this solution we can easily manage the arrival of trucks. We know how long an average delivery takes and will be able to compare that against the actual time taken. This allows us to make suppliers accountable for their performance.
The company is using the collaboration and scheduling capabilities of the Transportation Management platform, so it can be scaled in the future to meet any growth in demand at the supermarket chain.
Delhaize reviewed five other vendors before settling on RedPrairie, choosing it for its functionality and user interface, the company said.
