Where all parts engage

The trip to the wholesale market: not necessary. Everything is delivered by the desired time – without having to search, pack or stand in line yourself. Made possible by Food Service Distribution, or in short: FSD. The delivery complements the wide network of METRO wholesale stores (see info box). The idea: the process should be as fast and convenient as possible for the customer. But as simple as the process may seem from the outside – behind it all lies complex technology which must be precisely interlinked.

'For the customer it is an end-to-end process', says Mihai Paduraru, Head of product Fulfillment and Transport solutions at METRO Digital. 'This has to be taken into account when we are working on the tools that have to function behind the scenes of an FSD depot.' Those independent depots are one of 3 operational models of the delivery services – besides the out-of-store model, where the customer is supplied from the stock of a METRO wholesale store, and those depots that are located within the location of a wholesale store, but form a separate unit in terms of stock management. The independent FSD depots, on the other hand, are pure warehouses and transshipment centres with no connection to a METRO store.

METRO operates 30 such pure FSD depots worldwide. A particularly modern warehouse is located in Poland, near Warsaw. In this so-called ‘Lighthouse Depot’, which serves as a model for other warehouses, 3 IT solutions and 2 domains interlock – invisible to the customer: M-Shop, M-Fulfill and M-Transport. M-Shop forms the interface to the customer: It’s the online shop for METRO customers where they can place their orders for various fulfilment types including FSD. The e-commerce platform is currently available in 19 METRO countries; HoReCa customers place an average of 150,000 orders per week.

All this seems to happen automatically. In fact, however, it is based on complex IT developments and processes. Not as an end in itself, but to increase speed and efficiency. Thus the system not only knows the quantity of goods available, but for instance also the expiry dates - and can point this out accordingly. By scanning the barcodes of the individual products as well as the boxes and the label, which is created individually for each order, the system warns if articles or even entire boxes are missing. The employees at the depot work with a handheld device for this purpose, which provides all the systems and information.

Still decisive: the human factor

'In the past there were paper picking lists, which took a lot of time and produced many errors', says Paduraru. Now almost everything in the depot runs paperless. The goal of all efforts: to detect errors as early as possible - to offer customers the best service and at the same time to work as efficiently as possible. 'The pickers should not experience any problems during their work, but should be able to handle everything smoothly', says Paduraru. Because people are still the most important factors in the depot. They not only pick the goods, but also do what computers cannot do: detect a rotten tomato (which can happen despite all the technology), wrap sensitive goods very carefully, or make sure that washing powder, for example, is not packed next to bananas to avoid health risks and changes in taste. 'After all it’s still a physical job - supported by IT.'