Whirlpool says it has made massive savings since transforming its supply chain with Manhattan’s SCOPE programmes.
The appliance company estimates that 40 million travel miles have been saved and that pick process time has been reduced by 50 per cent. A 50 per cent reduction has also been seen to levels of damaged stock and warehouse uptime has been increased to 90 per cent.
Brian Hancock, vice president of supply chain at Whirlpool said: “The biggest obstacle for most companies is their inability to bridge supply chain silos – they separate order management, product development, procurement and manufacturing from the final delivery process. For our supply chain to deliver on our corporate promises, we realised the way to attain the necessary efficiencies required was to build seamless visibility inside and outside our warehouses.”
By the time Whirlpool acquired kitchen appliance manufacturer Maytag in 2006, its supply chain involved some 7,000 suppliers, and 40 manufacturing plants, as well as delivering to consumers, builders and more than 30,000 retailers.
To address the requirements of all these channels, Whirlpool decided to optimise its supply chain, and chose Manhattan’s software for the job. To streamline its distribution network, Whirlpool took Manhattan’s warehouse management, slotting management and labour management systems from the SCOPE distribution management suite. To target inventory visibility, it also invested in Manhattan’s extended enterprise management programme.
As well as increasing warehouse efficiency and improved yard management and order-to-delivery times, Whirlpool report benefits from having an accurate, real time view of inventory.
