Izico Food Group manage complete supply chain with Slim4

After completing a number of major acquisitions, Izico, took the strategic decision to centralise planning of both its factories and its suppliers. As highlighted by Andres Vervaart, sales & operations planning manager at Izico, Slim4 played an important role in transforming this ambition into a reality.

Izico Food Group manage complete supply chain with Slim4

Izico Food Group has endured several years of turbulent growth with the successful completion of a number of acquisitions. In the Netherlands, snack producers De Vries Van Oers and Excellent Food were taken over.

Furthermore, a number of English and Danish businesses were also acquired and incorporated into the group.

“We now have eight factories in total,” states sales and operations planning manager, Andres Vervaart. “In addition, we also have around twenty suppliers where we buy ready-made snacks.”

With over 900 Skus, the assortment encompasses everything from frozen snacks and spring rolls to bread snacks and vegetarian snacks. The company supplies these under both private labels as well as under its own brands of which, Beckers, Mexicanos and Bicky Burgers are best known. Whereas the snack specialist supplies the retail and catering wholesale sectors from stock, Izico fulfil demand from industrial customers on order.

Promotional pressure

The demand planning for the stock-controlled part of the range is executed in Slim4. A consensus forecast is drawn up on the basis of a base forecast. A separate forecast for the promotions is then created. “The promotional pressure is high in our market. With Slim4, we make an explicit distinction between the base demand and promotional demand. As a result, we have tightened our stock levels considerably.

Due to the sheer number of promotions, our forecasts were structurally too high. This is because we previously had no visibility of the full range of demand factors such as seasonal patterns, for example. We now have much more granular level of insight over our inventory.

As a result, the level of working capital invested in stock has dropped considerably. Quantifying the exact extent of the improvement is difficult given how much out the company has changed.”

Taking ordering to the next level

Slim4 is also used for supply planning at Izico as well as for calculating ordering advice to optimise raw materials and consumables.
As highlighted by Vervaart, the Order Generator in Slim4 comes in handy: “With the items that we buy, it often involves making large orders.

To minimise logistics costs, we want the best possible order quantities. Therefore, it is important that we attain full pallets and, if possible, full trucks. With the Order Generator within Slim4, we can make the optimal order for each supplier at the touch of a button. On the basis of robust purchase forecasts, order costs, inventory holding costs and logistical restrictions, Slim4 can calculate future orders in a smart way to ensure that the right products are ordered in the right quantities.”

Izico Food Group now has production locations in various countries. By optimising these locations with the assistance of Slim4, Vervaart expects to make further improvements. “At present, each factory determines what they produce. However, this often results in a lot of surplus stock. By utilising Slim4 to calculate what needs to be produced on a weekly basis, we can reduce the level of working capital invested in stock even further while also improving the service level.

The ultimate goal is that, we manage the entire supply chain from a central competence centre. Slim4 will be an important tool in making this a reality.”