DB: I have always placed particular emphasis on supply chain visibility. We look at the process from the supplier to the store. We’ve been doing “ultra-fresh” for about 70 years now. I think we understand the business. It’s the people that make the business excellent. They are better than any software at many points because they can still put emotions, feelings and thoughts into it that a machine can’t do.

The stores are the driver here because they have to think about what the customer will buy and they have to offer that in top quality. There are forecasting tools for this, which we introduced very early on and are constantly developing. If the software predicts what the customer will buy tomorrow, then we have to think the whole process backwards from there – a classic PULL process. But because we are in the ultra-fresh business, there are exactly 24 hours between store order, supplier trigger and delivery to the stores. That’s damn short. We have further divided that into two 12-hour slots. So you have to know in 12 hours: “What does the customer want, when do they need it, when can the supplier deliver it? Then you add picking and delivery to the stores.” In this business, there is little room for waste and even less room for idle time. Everything has to be meticulously planned and timed.

And then there is suddenly a black hole in the on-site traffic, where all the threads come together! Obviously, that’s not an option at all. Yard Management is the central hub for all our supply chain planning and has “plugged” or in other words “eliminated” this digital gap.

The store says when it wants an item and in what quantity. On top of that, there’s the transportation time. From then on, the whole process has to be subordinate to that. The yard needs time to make the plans, the intralogistics needs time to stock the carrier, then the pallets have to be produced right on loading time, then the supplier has to place the goods receipt. That leaves you with damn little time.