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ePaper created 2013-04-22, 10:40:15 | version 1.25.8
16 Issue One 2013 Elaborate planning In addition to the basic assortment that the build- ers merchant keeps in stock, about 68 percent of the products are en route, and are called for directly from the in- dustry when they have been ordered by the customer. This requires elab- orate planning: The order rhythms must be calculated as effectively as possible, after all the correct quanti- ties must be available for delivery at the right time. For two years now, the “Centralising Purchasing, Pro- curement and Regional Administra- tion” department in the company has helped to achieve this. It is known as ZEBRA for short – an acronym based on its name in German. It is a cen- tral department which coordinates all orders for the Northern Germany area, organising procedures more ef- ficiently and reducing the workload of the sales departments in the in- dividual branches. Orders contin- ue to be received there; employees write delivery notes and book the stock. ZEBRA works in the back- ground, observing when items dip below their reorder points, and im- mediately orders more. The corre- sponding key figures are defined by ZEBRA in cooperation with the individual branches. One of the fac- tors that are important is the ques- tion of delivery times for the par- ticular articles – it can take several weeks for specially coated wood to arrive from China or Brazil. »For us, all customers are the same, whether they are buying one pot of paint or a thousand.« Karim Shaaban, responsible for orders and stock Driver Sandor Küster loads and secures the ordered products.