German Drugstore Chain Rossmann Optimizes Its Inventory with RELEX

Lebensmittelzeitung is one of the most highly regarded German publications for retailers. On August 31st, the journal ran an article about Rossmann’s and RELEX’s joint supply chain project where Michael Rybak (Managing Director Sales, Logistics and IT) and Jürgen Mattulke (Head of Inventory Management) of Rossmann spoke about their impressive results.

| The news was first published on RELEX's website

Both managers expressed their satisfaction with the cooperation with RELEX and the system’s performance, which has already led to substantial improvements at various points of the supply chain:

• Stock for promotional products has reduced by 25 %, while availability has improved.
• Out-of-stock throughout the assortment decreased from 1.5 % to less than 1 %.
• Overstocking of promotional products was cut by 25 % in comparison to the previous year, whereas out-of-stocks were reduced by 10 %.
• During the previous Christmas season, out-of-stocks were reduced by 17 % compared to the previous year, without an increase in inventory.

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Rossmann’s supply chain operation relies on RELEX’s demand forecasts which take many factors into account, such as, demand peaks in the days following wage payments, supplier constraints and loading capacities of trucks. All of Rossmann’s 2,100 stores and 8 distribution centers are replenished with RELEX’s system which calculates forecasts for 100 million product-store-combinations every year.

Rossmann is also starting to use RELEX’s space and assortment software to optimize its space planning on store-level. Thus, in addition to optimizing order quantities, Rossmann will also be able to produce store-specific planograms.

Full article (in German) available here.