Fedefarma

Jordi Montserrat

Operations Coordinator | Fedefarma

"This project has undoubtedly helped us to establish ourselves as one of the leading pharmaceutical distributors in Spain."

Federació Farmacèutica (Fedefarma) is one of the most important pharmaceutical cooperatives in Spain. With 7 distribution centres and over 3000 pharmacies in its network, the business fulfils more than 180,000 orders every day. The cooperative offers a complete range of 52,000 products to its associates, of which, more than 35,000 are permanently stocked.

Jordi Montserrat, Operations Coordinator at Fedefarma, highlight the challenge of tight margins in the industry: “Losing a 1% margin is a serious problem for us. If we do not have the best logistics to support us, it is impossible to survive in this market.”

Given that the sector is also heavily regulated and faces many restrictions from the government, Fedefarma realised that it needed a tool to optimise its inventory.

Automation with Slim4

When Fedefarma reached out to Slimstock, they made it clear that the system would have to be fully automated to enable the team to manage such a large number of products.

“Slimstock assured us that there would be no problem. And after implementing the solution, it was clear they were right. With Slim4, a single planner can manage a total of 450,000 SKUs across 7 distribution centres. The entire process is automated, from forecasting demand to deciding whether to stock or not stock a product at a given warehouse. Every night, Slim4 automatically then generates the orders to be placed.”, explains Montserrat.

The Operation Coordinator highlights that they can still modify any parameter as required. From adjusting the service level of an item to changing the warehouse parameters in response to regulatory change or even to supply a product directly from the laboratory. Once the changes have been made, Slim4 generates the optimal order taking into account the new configuration.

Slim4 complements Axional ERO

Fedefarma needed the system to be fully compatible with its existing Axional ERP from Deister. However, given that seamlessly connects with any ERP system or custom development, this was not a problem. “The integration with Deister was not a problem for our IT team. The implementation was swift and efficient,” explains Montserrat.

Better service with less stock

The results speak for themselves: a 40% reduction in inventory with a significant increase in service. “Before meeting Slimstock, if someone had told me that we could reduce the stock from € 77m to € 46m as we simultaneously improved the level of service to our associates, I would not have believed it. This project has undoubtedly helped us to establish ourselves as one of the leading pharmaceutical distributors in Spain.”