ZURBRÜGGEN: Easy replenishment for heavy furniture - AI from REMIRA makes it possible

Bulky items with high storage space requirements, unforeseen sales fluctuations and manufacturers with sometimes very long delivery times - the challenges for supply chain management in the furniture industry are particularly demanding and diverse. The renowned furniture retailer ZURBRÜGGEN from Unna has therefore been relying on AI-based software from REMIRA for several years and thus has its replenishment under control at all times.

The ZURBRÜGGEN company was founded in Oelde in 1900 and today has five furniture stores with delivery warehouses, a central warehouse and two distribution warehouses. In addition to furniture, the product range also includes a large number of small items, including household and decorative items. A total of around 84,000 SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) have to be managed.

Enormous replenishment effort became a problem

Before the introduction of the AI-based LOGOMATE inventory management software from REMIRA 15 years ago, replenishment was very time-consuming. Although the merchandise management system already produced order proposals, the corresponding tables had to be checked and adjusted manually. The responsible replenishersthen manually transferred the revised lists back into the merchandise management system. "In the furniture department alone, this took two people three full working days," recalls replenisher Nadine Breuker, "and back then we still had a much smaller range and fewer stores than we do today." The company has grown considerably in recent years, particularly in the area of e-commerce, adds Alexander Friz, who is responsible for organization at ZURBRÜGGEN. Breuker and Friz agree that a lot more staff would be needed today to manage the work with the merchandise management system alone.

Automation thanks to LOGOMATE

Thanks to REMIRA's inventory management software, replenishment is now much more automated, explains Nadine Breuker:

"LOGOMATE already makes a pre-selection of items that may need to be ordered. This saves us an enormous amount of time given the sheer volume of goods in our range."

The supply chain solution also takes care of replenishment: the replenishers' decisions are automatically transferred to the merchandise management system, where the orders are also created automatically. There are around 19,000 such processes at ZURBRÜGGEN every year. This is made possible by AI-controlled analysis processes: LOGOMATE can calculate the usual delivery times of the manufacturers as well as the expected item requirements at the various locations of the furniture store. In this way, the software ensures timely reordering and at the same time avoids overstocking at the various warehouse locations. Suggestions for restocking items for which new demand trends are emerging are also included, as take-away items in particular should be available in every store at all times.

"Our risk of going out of stock is now very low thanks to LOGOMATE."

Nadine Breuker has found. Given the standard delivery times of five to six weeks for most manufacturers in the industry, this is by no means a matter of course. "The software calculates very precisely when orders are required and also takes minimum order quantities into account," adds the replenisher.

Two replenishers, half the working time

Thanks to the introduction of the AI-based inventory management solution, the furniture department can continue to be managed by just two dispatchers, who also have around half of their working days available for other tasks. "Although the product range has grown, the workload for the dispatchers has been reduced," summarizes Nadine Breuker.

The practicality of working with LOGOMATE is demonstrated not least by customer inquiries at short notice. "For example, it sometimes happens that an elderly lady who needs a new bed quickly turns up at one of our stores," reports Alexander Friz. "With LOGOMATE, we can quickly find out in such cases whether the item is still in stock at another location and then collect it there." Especially in the furniture industry with its generally long delivery times, such a fast service is a real image boost and ultimately a competitive advantage.