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The Challenge
Geest plc is one of the leading fresh prepared food and produce manufacturers in the
UK. Having moved away from its traditional roots as a banana grower and importer, the
company now focuses its business entirely on fresh foods and specialises in developing
‘own label’ goods for the grocery multiples. From sites throughout Europe, as well as
from as far afield as South Africa, Geest supplies its extensive portfolio of products to
some of the biggest names in the food retail industry.
To date, the success of the Geest business, combined with an ever-increasing demand
for its fresh prepared food products, has seen the company achieve growth way ahead
of the rest of the market. With a sales turnover of £664 million and a target turnover of
£1 billion expected to be achieved within just a few years, it became essential for Geest
to make vast improvements to its existing supply chain systems in order to maintain and
advance its market leading position.
Combined with the challenges presented by rapid market growth was the added
problem of a lack of co-ordination and integration amongst the company’s systems
and facilities. Geest’s order processing and transactions systems were only minimally
integrated with its existing warehouse management software; meaning a paper based
system had to be used for orders, picking, despatching and reporting. Furthermore,
with six Geest food companies working from multiple factories on the same site and all
feeding into seven different warehouses, the company realised the need to consolidate
the number of operational facilities it had and to apply a single system for managing
and fulfilling orders.
The company concluded that to consolidate its leading position in the fresh food market,
where extremely short production cycles are the norm and where order accuracy
and delivery promptness are sacrosanct, the implementation of a new and unified Warehouse
Management System (WMS) became a strategic imperative.
The Solution
Working closely with its manufacturing facilities, Geest re-thought its supply chain
support infrastructure and opted to centralise its fulfilment operation in a brand new
distribution centre.
The board agreed to a £4 million investment in Spalding, Lincolnshire, based on an
aggressive payback plan. As part of this investment, Geest chose Manhattan Associates
to provide the warehouse management system - a decision based partly on Manhattan
Associates’ vision of the role of a modern warehouse within the total supply chain.
Geest
Customer Success Story
Facts at a glance:
Number of warehouses: 1 in Spalding,
Lincolnshire
Size of warehouse: 5,853 m2 (63,000 ft2)
Number of employees: 10,600
Number of SKUs: 2,200
Volume Throughput: 20 million cases per year
Manhattan
Associates Solution: Warehouse
Management for
Open Systems
RF Equipment: Hand-held and vehicle
mounted LXE
computers
Server: Windows 2000
Achieving a Faster, Fresher and More
Flexible Food Service Operation
“With the Manhattan Associates
warehouse management system, anyone
can see what is happening in the business
at any time, and that information
is in real time.”
Terry Moore
Logistics General Manager
Geest
Food
www.manh.com
© 2006 Manhattan Associates, Inc.
Manhattan Associates’ Warehouse Management for Open Systems
was selected and would operate within a Microsoft-based
architecture, consisting of Microsoft’s Windows 2000 server
technology and Microsoft’s SQL server database. As the system
went live in the new distribution centre, the manual paper-based
environment was replaced with a paperless Radio Frequency
(RF)-driven operation, managed by Manhattan Associates’ WMS.
The overall project, including the design and construction of a
state-of-the-art chilled facility, was completed within six months.
At the end of the implementation, the Manhattan Associates
WMS was managing the distribution of Geest’s salads, soups,
sauces, dips, dressings and ready meals to all major stores
throughout the UK and Northern Europe.
The Implementation
When Geest began its search for a new WMS, it narrowed down
the list of potential suppliers to four, including Manhattan Associates.
A number of challenges made the project stand out from other
WMS implementations. While there had been a number of highprofile
projects involving supply chain collaboration between
large consumer packaged goods companies and retailers, the
task facing companies in the fresh food sector is more complex.
Frequently there is only one day between manufacture and sellby
date, so order accuracy and rapid fulfilment are both critical.
Response is also important, as fresh and chilled food are subject
to a perpetual round of promotion by the major supermarkets;
the manufacturer can generate more sales if promotional requests
can be matched to production quickly and accurately.
“It was a real challenge installing a new WMS in a brand new DC
inside six weeks, but together we cracked it, and our success
puts Geest at the forefront of the supply chain for many years to
come. Our operation runs around the clock and we rely heavily
on Manhattan Associates’ immediate response and strong
support team,” says Terry Moore, Geest’s general manager of
logistics.
The Benefits
Geest has demonstrated a number of measurable benefits
through the use of Manhattan Associates’ Warehouse Management
for Open Systems, including:
• Efficiency of space usage
• Improved use of labour
• Higher levels of service to customers
• Flexibility to handle fluctuations in demand
• Excellent visibility across the supply chain.
The new distribution centre requires only two thirds of the space
occupied by the same volume of products in the old warehouse.
Productivity gains also come from the more efficient organisation
of labour through the use of LXE MX2 hand-held and VX1 truckmounted
scanners. The LXE mobile computers incorporate bar
code scanning technology for accurate inventory identification
and are used for a variety of tasks including order picking and
stock control. They
are integrated with the WMS to provide real-time data communications
within the operation. This has led to a change in culture
at Geest – the information provided by the logistics team now
drives the speed of the outbound operation. Geest has seen for
example a reduction in the cut-off time for completing despatchready
consignments from four to two hours.
Improvements in customer service have also been recorded. For
one Geest customer, Tesco, a 99.97 per cent level of service has
been achieved since the implementation of the new WMS.
Geest’s production is triggered by orders. As there is frequently
less than a day between order and distribution, planning becomes
extremely difficult. Manhattan Associates’ WMS manages
the company’s production requirements over a perpetual sevenday
cycle and can also handle the massive peaks in demand that
Geest faces in the summer and around the Christmas period.
Visibility has improved hugely. Another critical requirement
for any of Geest’s systems was the ability to manage a tightly
controlled short shelf life inventory, where lot and date information
must be tracked throughout the entire supply chain. The
Manhattan Associates system offers a web interface, allowing the
information to be viewed from any location in real time.
The Future
Geest’s next step will be to implement the analysis and reporting
tools from Manhattan Associates’ Performance Management
suite to provide further real-time visibility into its supply chain.
This will enable Geest to respond even faster to the needs of
its customers, through more accurate fulfilment of orders and
a swifter response to sudden demand. Manhattan Associates’
analysis and reporting tools convert transaction data into reports
so that Geest can see exactly how the supply chain is performing
and where further improvements can be made.
In this project, the first of its kind, Manhattan Associates and
Geest successfully approached the challenge of automating the
entire fresh food supply chain from initial order to final delivery.
The ultimate goal is to move from “make to order” to “order to
order,” where orders from retailers drive orders to the manufacturers’
own supplier. There is still some way to go, but the infrastructure,
in terms of both physical processes and IT systems, is
now in place at Geest.
Geest plc is one of the leading fresh prepared food and produce manufacturers in the
UK. Having moved away from its traditional roots as a banana grower and importer, the
company now focuses its business entirely on fresh foods and specialises in developing
‘own label’ goods for the grocery multiples. From sites throughout Europe, as well as
from as far afield as South Africa, Geest supplies its extensive portfolio of products to
some of the biggest names in the food retail industry.
To date, the success of the Geest business, combined with an ever-increasing demand
for its fresh prepared food products, has seen the company achieve growth way ahead
of the rest of the market. With a sales turnover of £664 million and a target turnover of
£1 billion expected to be achieved within just a few years, it became essential for Geest
to make vast improvements to its existing supply chain systems in order to maintain and
advance its market leading position.
Combined with the challenges presented by rapid market growth was the added
problem of a lack of co-ordination and integration amongst the company’s systems
and facilities. Geest’s order processing and transactions systems were only minimally
integrated with its existing warehouse management software; meaning a paper based
system had to be used for orders, picking, despatching and reporting. Furthermore,
with six Geest food companies working from multiple factories on the same site and all
feeding into seven different warehouses, the company realised the need to consolidate
the number of operational facilities it had and to apply a single system for managing
and fulfilling orders.
The company concluded that to consolidate its leading position in the fresh food market,
where extremely short production cycles are the norm and where order accuracy
and delivery promptness are sacrosanct, the implementation of a new and unified Warehouse
Management System (WMS) became a strategic imperative.
The Solution
Working closely with its manufacturing facilities, Geest re-thought its supply chain
support infrastructure and opted to centralise its fulfilment operation in a brand new
distribution centre.
The board agreed to a £4 million investment in Spalding, Lincolnshire, based on an
aggressive payback plan. As part of this investment, Geest chose Manhattan Associates
to provide the warehouse management system - a decision based partly on Manhattan
Associates’ vision of the role of a modern warehouse within the total supply chain.
Geest
Customer Success Story
Facts at a glance:
Number of warehouses: 1 in Spalding,
Lincolnshire
Size of warehouse: 5,853 m2 (63,000 ft2)
Number of employees: 10,600
Number of SKUs: 2,200
Volume Throughput: 20 million cases per year
Manhattan
Associates Solution: Warehouse
Management for
Open Systems
RF Equipment: Hand-held and vehicle
mounted LXE
computers
Server: Windows 2000
Achieving a Faster, Fresher and More
Flexible Food Service Operation
“With the Manhattan Associates
warehouse management system, anyone
can see what is happening in the business
at any time, and that information
is in real time.”
Terry Moore
Logistics General Manager
Geest
Food
www.manh.com
© 2006 Manhattan Associates, Inc.
Manhattan Associates’ Warehouse Management for Open Systems
was selected and would operate within a Microsoft-based
architecture, consisting of Microsoft’s Windows 2000 server
technology and Microsoft’s SQL server database. As the system
went live in the new distribution centre, the manual paper-based
environment was replaced with a paperless Radio Frequency
(RF)-driven operation, managed by Manhattan Associates’ WMS.
The overall project, including the design and construction of a
state-of-the-art chilled facility, was completed within six months.
At the end of the implementation, the Manhattan Associates
WMS was managing the distribution of Geest’s salads, soups,
sauces, dips, dressings and ready meals to all major stores
throughout the UK and Northern Europe.
The Implementation
When Geest began its search for a new WMS, it narrowed down
the list of potential suppliers to four, including Manhattan Associates.
A number of challenges made the project stand out from other
WMS implementations. While there had been a number of highprofile
projects involving supply chain collaboration between
large consumer packaged goods companies and retailers, the
task facing companies in the fresh food sector is more complex.
Frequently there is only one day between manufacture and sellby
date, so order accuracy and rapid fulfilment are both critical.
Response is also important, as fresh and chilled food are subject
to a perpetual round of promotion by the major supermarkets;
the manufacturer can generate more sales if promotional requests
can be matched to production quickly and accurately.
“It was a real challenge installing a new WMS in a brand new DC
inside six weeks, but together we cracked it, and our success
puts Geest at the forefront of the supply chain for many years to
come. Our operation runs around the clock and we rely heavily
on Manhattan Associates’ immediate response and strong
support team,” says Terry Moore, Geest’s general manager of
logistics.
The Benefits
Geest has demonstrated a number of measurable benefits
through the use of Manhattan Associates’ Warehouse Management
for Open Systems, including:
• Efficiency of space usage
• Improved use of labour
• Higher levels of service to customers
• Flexibility to handle fluctuations in demand
• Excellent visibility across the supply chain.
The new distribution centre requires only two thirds of the space
occupied by the same volume of products in the old warehouse.
Productivity gains also come from the more efficient organisation
of labour through the use of LXE MX2 hand-held and VX1 truckmounted
scanners. The LXE mobile computers incorporate bar
code scanning technology for accurate inventory identification
and are used for a variety of tasks including order picking and
stock control. They
are integrated with the WMS to provide real-time data communications
within the operation. This has led to a change in culture
at Geest – the information provided by the logistics team now
drives the speed of the outbound operation. Geest has seen for
example a reduction in the cut-off time for completing despatchready
consignments from four to two hours.
Improvements in customer service have also been recorded. For
one Geest customer, Tesco, a 99.97 per cent level of service has
been achieved since the implementation of the new WMS.
Geest’s production is triggered by orders. As there is frequently
less than a day between order and distribution, planning becomes
extremely difficult. Manhattan Associates’ WMS manages
the company’s production requirements over a perpetual sevenday
cycle and can also handle the massive peaks in demand that
Geest faces in the summer and around the Christmas period.
Visibility has improved hugely. Another critical requirement
for any of Geest’s systems was the ability to manage a tightly
controlled short shelf life inventory, where lot and date information
must be tracked throughout the entire supply chain. The
Manhattan Associates system offers a web interface, allowing the
information to be viewed from any location in real time.
The Future
Geest’s next step will be to implement the analysis and reporting
tools from Manhattan Associates’ Performance Management
suite to provide further real-time visibility into its supply chain.
This will enable Geest to respond even faster to the needs of
its customers, through more accurate fulfilment of orders and
a swifter response to sudden demand. Manhattan Associates’
analysis and reporting tools convert transaction data into reports
so that Geest can see exactly how the supply chain is performing
and where further improvements can be made.
In this project, the first of its kind, Manhattan Associates and
Geest successfully approached the challenge of automating the
entire fresh food supply chain from initial order to final delivery.
The ultimate goal is to move from “make to order” to “order to
order,” where orders from retailers drive orders to the manufacturers’
own supplier. There is still some way to go, but the infrastructure,
in terms of both physical processes and IT systems, is
now in place at Geest.