McDonald's is rolling out a software system that will
anticipate customer demand across thousands of European fast-food
establishments and improve management of food and materials stock
levels.
The system, from Manugistics, is already being used in France and
Germany where it has reduced costs and helped to make McDonald's
existing supply chain more efficient.
McDonald's now plans to roll out Manugistics' advanced Forecasting
and Replenishment product in the UK, Sweden and Austria. The fast
food retailer then plans to deploy the manufacturer's products in
operations throughout Europe's major countries within two
years.
Lora Cecere, research director at AMR Research, said, "McDonald's
has been a client of Manugistics since the 1990s and the European
implementation is the second implementation. The Manugistics suite
is one of the most scalable client server or web-based
architectures and was selected after due diligence and
testing."
Manugistics would not comment on the size of the contract, but
Cecere, who is familiar with the deal, estimated that it could have
ranged from £220,000 to £660,000 in licences and services.
Thomas Schachner, senior director of global logistics and supply
chain integration at McDonald's, said, "Through high-levels of
forecast accuracy, supply chain visibility and decision support, we
have already achieved payback [on the systems that are deployed in
France and Germany]."
The savings came as a result of improved restaurant inventory
levels and in-restaurant efficiencies including product and recipe
usage yields, reductions in waste, transport and purchasing costs,
said Schachner.
"Based on these results across a network of nearly 2,000 European
restaurants live today, we shall be rolling out aggressively across
the rest of the region," Schachner said.
Cecere said that for companies to implement a demand-driven supply
network they need to alter the way they think about traditional
supply chains, and be committed to the expectations and
requirements of the customer.
"This is a culture that is built upon the ability to listen,
respond, and adapt to customers by using organisational resources
as a weapon for market competitiveness," said Cecere.
IT at McDonald's
January 2003
McDonald's abandons a billion-dollar networking and Oracle
enterprise resource planning project it started in 1999.
March 2003
Intel and McDonald's hook up to push Wi-Fi wireless connectivity in
particular food outlets.
February 2004
McDonald's drops plans to outsource its finance and accounting
functions to IBM.
April 2004
Affiliated Computer Services wins a seven-year £118m deal to
provide infrastructure services, including mainframe, enterprise
servers, end-user computing and helpdesk support for 6,000
desktops.