UK’s largest independent manufacturer of cleaning and hygiene products boosts supply chain management with RELEX systems
RELEX, Europe’s fastest growing developer of supply chain management software, is to help Zenith Hygiene Group boost its planning, forecasting and efficiency.
Zenith operates through seven distribution centres around the UK and has been looking to optimise product availability while simultaneously reducing inventory levels.
“Zenith is expanding and we’re constantly winning new customers – which is fantastic, but we need to ensure we always have stock so we do not let these, and our existing customers down” says Zenith’s COO Simon Bower. “We’ve chosen RELEX to help provide high quality forecasts to optimise our handling of new accounts where we sometimes have no existing sales data. RELEX’s technology will also help us ensure service levels for existing customers, who order infrequently and whose needs are therefore harder to predict, are maintained.”
“Balancing stock between our seven depots is critical,” says Bower, “while managing suppliers’ purchasing rules as part of our ordering – things like minimum quantities – helps us keep input costs down.”
Zenith also aims to improve the management of seasonal goods and to ensure service levels are maintained, so customers can always be sure of finding the items they need in stock.
“We routinely see clients cut inventory levels by thirty percent plus,” says Tommi Ylinen, Managing Director of RELEX UK. “Yet with good forecasting and planning they can push availability to 98 or 99% at the same time.”
“In the last twelve months wholesalers in four European countries, including the UK, have chosen RELEX for our systems and our expertise,” says Ylinen. “Zenith’s confidence in us reflects our track record of tailoring supply chain management systems to the needs of the wholesale sector and individual businesses within it.”
The implementation project began in late August and full roll-out is planned to begin in December 2014, to be completed early in 2015.
Zenith makes around 35,000 deliveries a month to over 10,000 customer sites including restaurants, caterers, schools and hospitals. Founded in 1996, Zenith manufactures products in Northern Ireland and has distribution centres in Lisburn, East Kilbride, Droitwich, Elland, Oldham, Swanley and Welham Green.