Basiq Dental

Wholesaler of dental materials Basiq Dental had its logistics perfectly organised, but was still falling short in the purchasing side. The implementation of Slim4 has rectified this. Stock value has since fallen by 10%, and delivery performance is closely monitored. “Slim4 offers possibilities we could only dream of before,” says Buying Manager Willem Schilders.

Basiq Dental was once a disruptor in the dental wholesale sector. “We were one of the first suppliers without a sales force out in the field,” says Schilders. “Instead of physically visiting dentists and dental hygienists, we preferred to invest in a user-friendly e-commerce platform where customers could order their consumables themselves.” Basiq Dental is now an established name that supplies more than 30,000 dental practices at domestically and internationally. It has a state-of-the-art distribution centre with an automated storage system, where up to 300 orders per hour roll off the conveyor belt during peak times.

Just before its supply chain transformation, the purchasing side was less tightly organised, says Schilders, “Purchasers placed orders based on an order recommendation list delivered from on what customers had ordered in the previous fifteen weeks. The process was purely focused on placing the order, with too little information immediately available to support accurate delivery performance. We wanted to be more in control and work proactively.”

Purchasers also had no control over seasonal patterns. At the end of the summer, purchasing recommendations were invariably too low because demand in the autumn is much higher than in the previous fifteen weeks. “At the back end, we had everything perfectly organised, but at the front end, we had no control mechanism. The stock was out of balance.”

Spontaneous discount

The company decided to implement Slimstock’s inventory management system, Slim4. Schilders explains, “We wanted a system that looks forward rather than backward, one that calculates a forecast of future demand and generates order recommendations based on service level, delivery time, shelf life and optimal order quantity. It immediately became clear that Slim4 could do this. When we placed our first order using the system, we spontaneously received a discount from a supplier. They wanted to thank us for responding so neatly to their packaging units, the outer boxes and the stacking of pallets. Slim4 also takes into account the size of the bins in our own warehouse system, so that the storage space is used optimally.”

Anticipating

According to Schilders, the strength of Slim4 lies not only in the fact that orders are optimised, but also in the way the entire supply chain process becomes proactive. Purchasers look further ahead and intervene when products are in danger of running out of stock. Willem highlights: “There is so much more possible than just placing an order. Think of calling the supplier to speed up a delivery, finding an alternative, updating the website, informing the customer. But that requires a different process, a process of anticipating what is to come. Once you are out of stock, there is not much left to anticipate.”

One specific area that Basiq Dental wants to anticipate is price increases by suppliers, which are often announced a few months in advance. “Slim4 calculates how much extra you can order to take advantage of the lower price for a little while longer. It takes all relevant factors into account, not just the expected demand in the coming period, but also, for example, the maximum shelf life of a product and the extra stock costs incurred by a large order.”

Available to promise

Another situation that Schilders wants to anticipate with Slim4 is scarcity, situations where demand exceeds supply. “My ultimate wish is to develop an Available to Promise module that allows us to calculate the maximum amount a customer can purchase of a single item, so that we don’t have to turn any customers away. We can then manage this in the webshop by setting a maximum order size or by promoting an alternative product. These are advanced options that we could only dream of before, but which have now become achievable with Slim4.”

Continuous improvement

He also highlights the Power BI dashboard that comes with Slim4. “This is a management tool that I use several times a day. I can see immediately how we are doing: the stock value in pounds, the service level, the turnover rate and the excess stock. Colours indicate the extent to which these KPIs deviate from the targets, after which you can drill down to see which products or suppliers are causing this. Are there problems with the supplier? Was the forecast wrong? Did we order too late? It could be anything. I can also see which purchaser is responsible for the deviation and whether they have followed the notifications from Slim4. If a purchaser overrules advice from Slim4, this may indicate that the parameters are not set correctly.”

As a result, with Slim4, Basiq Dental has gained complete control over its stock and delivery performance. Stock value has already fallen by 10%, while the service level has remained consistently high. With Slim4 Power BI, Willem Schilders and his team now have a powerful management tool at their disposal that enables them to continuously adjust and optimise the entire supply chain operation. The project with Slimstock has brought the purchasing function to the same high level as the logistics operation; the front and back ends are now fully in balance.