Mexican supermarket chain El Florido has opted for Infor WMS (Warehouse Management System) to enhance its operational efficiency across the supply chain. The implementation will be carried out by Cerca Technology, a frontrunner in cutting-edge supply chain technology in Latin America.
Situated in Baja California Norte, Mexico, the supermarket chain specializes in meat-based products and groceries. El Florido aims to expedite in-store assortment, increase fill rate, obtain complete inventory visibility and facilitate effective sourcing across its branches.
Starting as a meat distributor, the business expanded its portfolio to include other product lines. This enabled growth in cities like Tijuana, Tecate, Rosarito, Ensenada and Mexicali, with a total of 50 branches.
To cater to the needs of all its branches, El Florido established a logistics operator, DFL Logistics, in 2016. DFL Logistics manages inventory for logistics operations that supply all branches with both groceries and perishable items.
The continual growth of El Florido necessitated a leading-edge solution to digitalize supply and demand planning, storage and order delivery processes.
Distribution centers were plagued by several issues such as phantom inventory, codes stuck in a transfer state, and challenges in fulfilling orders. Despite its functional system, the existing infrastructure was not equipped to handle the growing operations efficiently. This led to increased errors and affected the timing of order deliveries.
Measuring productivity in the distribution centers was also complicated due to manual tracking and basic estimating tools, leading to a significant investment of time.
Misael Verduzco, Logistics Manager of DFL Logistics, said: “The use of tools such as WMS are of great help, because it takes advantage of automation, reduces operating costs, increases efficiency, improves responsiveness and decreases complexity for effective distribution center management.
“We are confident that this new implementation will be successful. As inventory accuracy improves, the entire supply chain will benefit. What impressed us the most was the attention we received from Cerca Technology from the beginning. Follow-up, interest and participation were crucial in making the decision. Even when visiting our operations, they understood our needs closely, which resulted in a proposal very grounded to reality. We always felt supported.”
Infor WMS offers real-time information that aids El Florido in measuring processes and productivity accurately, centralizing procedures and offering greater planning flexibility for customer orders. It is also set to manage cargo transport unit registration from entry to unloading in its warehouses.
Wilson Ortiz, Manager of Professional Services at Cerca Technology, stated: “Once the team knew the interface of Infor WMS, and observed that it was intuitive and easy to use, adapting to it was more seamless versus competing solutions.”
Looking ahead, Verduzco and his team know that implementing Infor WMS is just the first step in their Digital Transformation journey. Alejandro Luna, Country Manager of Infor Mexico, commented: “Infor WMS will benefit the activities of the distribution centers of El Florido in an integral way. This solution combines warehouse assortment with integrated labor management and analytics to reduce complexity and enable optimized operational execution.”
DFL Logistics employs over 210 people, while El Florido as a whole has approximately 3,500 employees. The company operates two 10,000-square-meter distribution centers: 80% of the space is allocated for groceries, and the remaining 20% for perishable products. El Florido manages a total of 2,500 SKUs in groceries and 120 SKUs in perishables, and its transport fleet consists of 27 vehicles, 42 boxes and eight double-trailer equipment.