Pick N Pay Case Study Solution

One of the most important issues for Sonnendal is that the initiation of centralization by Pick n Pay should lead to more efficiency, but in reality the supply chain is became less efficient. This literature study focuses on the distribution of perishable products in general and it highlights the best practices, software and tools that may help solving the individual problems. The subsequent sections describe possible scenarios for Sonnendal, based on the information found in this literature study.
Distribution Management
First is examined what the basics of distribution management within supply chain management are, to understand what principles are important for the development of a good distribution channel. A study by Sadler (2007) states
The objective is to organise an efficient production and distribution based on the demand at the Point-of-Sale (POS). The POS is the time and place where a retail transaction is completed, in this case at the till in the Pick n Pay store. In order to make Efficient replenishment a success, it is of great importance that that Sonnendal gets access to the original, non-biased POS data. When this is done properly the “bullwhip” effect, which may cause the large demand spikes, can be avoided. The retailer could start up so-called extranet, allowing suppliers to see the inventories of their products down to article and outlet level. The highest level of cooperation between retailer and manufacturer is Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), in which the manufacturer becomes responsible of
Research by Piramithu and Zhou (2013) on tracing perishable items elaborates on recent developments in sensor and auto-identification technologies such as Time–Temperature Indicators (TTI), RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification) tags. These tools are used facilitate the ease of accomplishing the generation of item-level information. Given that different items are exposed to different ambient conditions and handlings, it helps to know as accurately as possible the ambient condition profile and time it takes to pass through the supply chain until it reaches the final customer. TTI stickers are placed on the perishable object and a change in color in these stickers is used to determine the extent of spoilage of the perishable. However, a drawback of TTIs (vs. RFID) is that these are passive and cannot communicate with a reader. RFID tags, on the other hand, can communicate with a reader for continual status updates. Given current state- of-the-art of related technologies, RFID tags are the most appro- priate choice for such applications. The need to study the use of RFID tags to generate item-level information is clearly compelling in this application area. Item-level information generated through RFID tags can be readily used to generate real-time information on the remaining shelf-life of perishables. As information at a finer level becomes available, this information could be