Focus leads to better results at Lasauslec

Since its establishment in 1947, Lasaulec B.V has been a leading technical wholesaler. “Throughout our extensive internal network, service is central. By combining our innovative logistics systems and a great tradition of flexibility, we guarantee close involvement with our customers. And part of this means that having the right inventory is crucial for us.

That is why we made no concessions when it came to controlling it. Slimstock’s Slim4 gives us the control of service and capital we want”, says Anne Lourens, COO of Lasaulec.

Since its establishment in 1947, Lasaulec B.V has been a leading technical wholesaler. “Throughout our extensive internal network, service is central. By combining our innovative logistics systems and a great tradition of flexibility, we guarantee close involvement with our customers. And part of this means that having the right inventory is crucial for us. That is why we made no concessions when it came to controlling it. Slimstock’s Slim4 gives us the control of service and capital we want”, says Anne Lourens, COO of Lasaulec.

High service levels

“Historically, Lasaulec has had two divisions: industrial and automotive. Both branches have distinctly different requirements, in the automotive division, quick delivery is crucial, whereas demand on the industrial side can be planned and developing added value is more important. In this area, Lasaulec focuses on the daily supply of MRO articles, as well as adding value for the customer in areas such as container concepts, auxiliary materials cabinets and all aspects of VMI.

The model on the automotive side, based on high service levels and low inventory, was very good and we wanted to use it on the industrial side. We therefore ran a project with Slimstock on forecasting, demand planning and inventory management. The result was that for our primary processes our Oracle ERP system was fine. But, it is critical for Lasaulec to be able to react instantly to fluctuations in demand; so, to compete even better in this hectic market, we enhanced Oracle with the best Slimstock software. Oracle is now our backbone, whilst Slim4 ensures we can handle the dynamics of the market.”

Availability over 98%

“Over a 24 hour period, our logistics systems make more than 140,000 articles available for our customers. Besides that we have our “internal deliveries’, one of the new logistic concepts. This means we can daily deliver 30,000 articles directly from the warehouse shelf to our customers. As a consequence of that we have an availability of over 98%. It is important for us to have a large range of items, and to support it we need the best possible logistic set-up.

Slim4 calculates the optimum stock to achieve the required service level, for each item at each store individually. It is important to emphasise that we have a range of 800,000 very dynamic articles and manage the whole range with just four planners. Excellent inventory management allows us to focus completely on our customers in the stores.”

Stock reduced by 20%

“As a result of implementing Slim4, we have reduced overall stock by more than twenty per cent, whilst maintaining availability levels. In fact, over the same period, we increased the availability of our stock articles to over 98 per cent. After all, it’s clear to us, that with Slim4 we use our money more effectively.”