Van Oirschot increases availabiity whilst inventory value remains stable

With help from Slim4, the Belgian heating & ventilation wholesaler, Van Oirschot, increased their service level at their central warehouse to over 98 percent while on-shelf availability at their stores also increased from 95 percent to almost 98 percent. Furthermore, despite their growing assortment, inventory levels continue to fall.

Van Oirschot has been offering heating and ventilation materials for building projects for more than 50 years. Given their expanding range of more than 120,000 SKUs, 10,000 of which are kept on stock , ensuring customers receive orders on time is of the upmost of importance. Danny Dedroog, the purchasing manager at Van Oirschot, goes on to explain: “Anything that is ordered before 7 pm, will be delivered the next day.”

Availability increased from 96% to 98.9%

To guarantee their customers an exceptional level of service, ensuring a high level of availability in the central warehouse is crucial. With Slimstock’s inventory optimisation software, Slim4, Van Oirschot increased their availability from around 96 percent to more than 98 percent while maintaining a stable inventory value. Dedroog explains: “Despite offering a much broader assortment, our investment in stock has remained at around 10 million euros. With Slim4, we are able to forecast with much greater accuracy and we also have greater insight into which items should be stocked and non-stocked.” Furthermore, through taking into account economic factors such as an increase of the purchase price or the impact of a promotion on demand, Slim4 offers the right support for making informed purchasing decisions.

Increased service level in stores

“Our approach to inventory management is now far more structured allowing us to focus more of our attention on managing the exceptions. This in turn has saved us a huge amount of time which we can invest in refining the inventory strategy for each article.” In addition to managing the inventory in the central warehouse, Slim4 is now also utilised to control stock levels across the various branches. As a result, the stock turn has accelerated and the risk of missing orders has vastly reduced. Consequently, the service level in the branches has increased from 95 percent to almost 98 percent, while the inventory levels decreased.

Responsive replenishment

The increased on-shelf availability was partly thanks to the fact that the store managers now rely on a more efficient replenishment process. Previously, the sales data was taken from the ERP-system, Navision, during the night. However, this process now happens in the late afternoon meaning that everything that is re-ordered between 8am and 3 pm is picked in the central warehouse the same day and delivered to the store the following morning. “In comparison with our previous situation, this has enabled us to be far more responsive,” concludes a satisfied Dedroog.