The company, which is part of the Sonepar Group, pursued the goal of significantly increasing the degree of automation in purchasing and replacing the previously experience-based ordering processes with fact-based inventory planning. The Slimstock solution continuously supports Sonepar in Switzerland in maintaining optimal stock levels, avoiding stockouts and surpluses and managing supplier relationships efficiently.

Before the introduction of Slimstock software, the electrical wholesaler was confronted with a high level of manual effort in order and inventory management, which significantly impaired efficiency. Instead of a special supply chain planning tool, the company only used the basic functions of the ERP system in use and therefore worked with rigid minimum/maximum stock levels. This often led to overstocking, as a lack of transparency and sound data analysis meant that unnecessarily high safety stock levels were built up, especially for high-turnover items. Against this background, Sonepar in Switzerland finally decided to introduce appropriate software - and found the right partner in Slimstock.

Fast implementation and immediate improvements

At Sonepar in Switzerland, the AI-supported Slimstock solution is used both in the central distribution center (CDC) and in four regional warehouses, while eight so-called Sonepar pick-up stores are also connected. Compared to previous challenges, the company has achieved efficiency gains and optimized the entire ordering process in particular. "Thanks to the automated order suggestions in Slim4, we order exactly what we need at the right time. This has significantly improved our inventory quality," says Robin von Ow, Head of Supply Chain Planning at Sonepar in Switzerland. The company has succeeded in reducing stock levels in a targeted manner, eliminating excess stock and at the same time increasing availability to an average of 99.9% and optimizing stock turnover. In addition, existing data silos were broken down and a central single point of truth was created with Slim4. "Important information is no longer tied to individual people. Instead, we have mapped all relevant data and processes centrally in the system - accessible to all authorized employees at all times," explains Robin von Ow. "This ensures significantly more transparency, and all key figures and information remain in view at all times."

More capacity for value-adding tasks

One particularly noticeable added value since the introduction of Slim4 has been the time saved: whereas employees previously spent around 55% of their working day manually managing and checking orders and around 30% managing delivery dates, automation has reduced these proportions to just 5% and 10% respectively. In return, more capacity is now available for value-oriented tasks, meaning that employees can now use 40% of their working day for supplier management and data analysis instead of 2.5% each.

Collaboration with suppliers in particular has also been significantly optimized: "We work much more closely with our suppliers, can monitor their performance more closely and, if necessary, point out deviations at an early stage in order to ultimately achieve improvements," explains Robin von Ow. Information that previously had to be painstakingly gathered is now available with just a few clicks, including important key figures. For example, the delivery times of individual items are directly visible so that they can be correctly taken into account when ordering. Slim4 also clearly displays deliveries that may arrive outside the original planning period, allowing Sonepar in Switzerland to keep a much better eye on suppliers' adherence to delivery dates. At the same time, the software always indicates whether a minimum order quantity may result in excess stock, which enables immediate negotiations with the supplier concerned.

The next steps

Looking to the future, Sonepar Suisse sees itself very well positioned with the Slimstock solution and will continue to drive forward the use of the software over the course of the year. In line with the Sonepar Group's core model, there are plans to use further Slim4 features, including in the area of stock balancing, to enable the automatic exchange of goods between the individual warehouses and thus further improve the quality of stock levels.