Value Chain and CX Investments: Sainsbury's, SpartanNash, and Casey’s Bolster Business Growth Efforts
Three retail brands — Sainsbury’s, SpartanNash, and Casey’s — have made significant investments in their business growth in recent days. Two of the companies are looking to transform their value chains, implementing enterprise-wide, supply chain-focused efforts. Meanwhile, SpartanNash is expanding on its robot success story.
Sainsbury’s
Multi-brand retailer Sainsbury’s is investing in its value chain, implementing an end-to-end supply chain transformation that will impact demand planning, store order planning, fulfillment, and more.
The company is tapping into tech from Blue Yonder to power these efforts, looking to replace existing solutions with next-gen, machine-powered tech that will improve forecasting and replenishment for its more than 2,000 stores.
Specific upgrades will include:
- Improvements in inventory stockholding and availability KPIs, powered by machine learning forecasting and multi-echelon replenishment
- Scalable and more resilient IT architecture
- Reduced key systems to eliminate redundancy, reduce tech risk, and improve UX
- Simplified and automated user experiences with standardized workflows to increase user productivity
“We are simplifying our operations at pace wherever we can in order to invest in improving food quality, increasing choice and innovation, and consistently delivering value to customers. Our Supply Chain Transformation Program will enable us to get products to the right place at the right time for customers by improving our ability to efficiently transport products across our network,” said Meinir Childs, director of supply chain, Sainsbury’s, in a statement.
“For the first time ever, we are now using machine learning to enable automatic forecast calculation and generation of store orders, so this is an exciting moment for our business,” Childs added.
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Casey’s
Convenience store retailer Casey’s General Stores, Inc. is looking to reduce the volume of manual work required by investing in unified space planning and supply chain tech.
The company is implementing tech, powered by RELEX, across its more than 2,400 stores. Through this implementation, Casey’s expects to improve forecasting and replenishment, promotional planning, fresh optimization, and more.
Additionally, Casey’s is looking to drive changes across the entire value chain, reducing waste, improving availability, and optimizing markdowns in its fresh product segment.
“As the organization continues to grow, our central space planning team requires more efficient processes to manage everything from a more regionalized assortment, seasonal inventory to fresh product,” said Jim Hamilton, senior space planning manager at Casey’s, in a statement.
Doug Means, SVP of supply chain at Casey’s, said the company didn’t originally have a system in place to balance freshness and availability within its fresh products segment. Through the investment, however, the company has gained a higher level of visibility, which has allowed Casey’s to solve operational challenges “that drive value to our business and ultimately, our customers.”
SpartanNash
Grocery retailer SpartanNash is expanding its use of autonomous inventory robot Tally in 15 of its grocery stores in Michigan and Indiana.
The company decided to continue investing in this customer experience and associate tech following a successful pilot in select D&W Fresh Market Stores. The company will now implement Tally in additional Family Fresh and Martin’s Super Market stores.
Powered by Simbe and its 3D computer vision tech, these robots track real-time inventory and shelf data and allow associates to spend more time on the floor with customers. It captures 15,000 to 30,000 products per hour to ensure that products remain in-stock, in the correct location, and are accurately priced.
"Tally's speed, accuracy, and automation enable our associates to save time in inventory tracking and spend more time on the floor serving store guests," said SpartanNash EVP, corporate retail, Tom Swanson.
