During periods of economic prosperity, companies focus primarily on business development, whereas economic downturns mobilize them to cut costs. Resilient and modernly managed companies use this period to analyze and optimize processes and prepare for future growth. The general economic downturn that occurred in Poland in recent years, and which we hope is coming to an end, also served as an impetus for change for the company Polbita.
Polbita is the owner of a chain of over 250 “Drogeria Natura” drugstore outlets and a distributor of significant brands of cosmetics, hygiene products, and household chemicals. The company supplies over 14,000 items to approximately 2,000 retail and wholesale customers throughout Poland. The company’s dynamic growth led the Management Board to decide to carry out a major optimization project aimed at improving the efficiency of end-customer service. Miebach Logistik was engaged as an independent consultant to conduct the project. The project covered a wide spectrum of activities: starting from the optimization of sales structures and regions, through streamlining and simplifying the flow of information in the supply chain, to optimizing the distribution network. All these actions were aimed at one overarching goal: to serve the end customer as quickly, as well, and as cheaply as possible. The essence of the project is well captured by its working title, given by Polbita’s Operations Director, Paweł Laskowski – Route To Market. Below, we will focus on the part of the project scope that was directly related to logistics. Polbita’s customers are supplied from a distribution center in Błonie through a network of regional warehouses. Deliveries to the warehouses are made by large trucks. The warehouses do not hold inventory; they only perform cross-docking with sorting for individual routes. From there, the goods are delivered by delivery vans or small trucks to the end recipients. This is a typical cross-dock operation.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 1/2004.