Amazing Oriental targets growth

With 24 supermarkets, Amazing Oriental is the largest Asian food retailer in the Netherlands. However, the company behind this chain, Oriental Holding Europe, is about much more than just food retail. “We are the largest trading company in Asian food. As a wholesaler, we supply customers across Europe. We also take orders from all over the continent through our online shop. Plus, we have developed a new restaurant concept under the name of Amazing Taste,” says Patricia Sjauw-Eik, Chief Operating Officer of Oriental Holding Europe.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Oriental noticed a growing interest in Asian food. “We have been expanding since opening our first store in 1986, but now it’s time to pick up the pace. The market is ready for that.”

Working smarter

Until recently, growth was virtually impossible due to the limited capacity of the distribution network. The company has two warehouses: one of 16,000m2 in Hoofddorp for dry products and another of 7,000m2 in Ypenburg for refrigerated and frozen products. “When I joined the company in 2019, we didn’t have a proper warehouse management system in place. We did the order picking using pen and paper; that wasn’t a sustainable situation. It was taking our 50 employees longer and longer to get all the orders out the door.”

Orders were taken from supermarkets through a point-of-sale system, which also managed the stock in the warehouses. “That system didn’t have the functionality you’d expect from a WMS. We needed to manage efficiency, but there was absolutely no way to do so. Productivity had to be improved.”

ERP system

In addition to a new WMS, Oriental also needed a new ERP system. SAP Business One was the winner there, but Sjauw-Eik was then faced with a difficult choice. Could the two warehouses be controlled by the warehouse management module in this ERP system? Or was a separate, best-of-breed warehouse management system specifically needed? “I know there are multiple ERP systems out there with the right WMS functionality, but in food retail, we have some rather particular requirements for a WMS – such as recording best-before dates and handling fresh products.”

The choice was ultimately made for Locus, Centric’s best-of-breed WMS. “We needed a smart WMS to professionalise our logistics, one that would control operations and reduce lead times efficiently. You can’t do that with a half-baked WMS. Centric had the experience we needed in the supermarket world. We are also an importer, exporter, wholesaler and a webshop operator. So we were looking for a partner that understands the complexity of this and knows the dynamics at play in our sector. And Centric was bold enough to take on the challenge.”

New mega warehouse

The implementation officially started in March 2020, a few days before the first lockdown was announced in the Netherlands. That threw up an additional challenge: implementing the WMS without any Centric staff being there on-site regularly.

“The roll-out did cause some problems, but they were all ironed out. Both we and Centric had the same goal and worked hard to achieve that. That gave us the boost we needed to make this kind of project a success.” The WMS has been up and running since February 2021, and the initial results are already clear to see. Efficiency in the warehouses has increased by around 15%, partly thanks to the barcode scanning. “Productivity can be increased even further, which is important, because that’s the only way to get our stock into more stores with our current warehouse capacity. At the same time, it’s brought stability to our operations.”

Oriental is also drawing up plans for a new mega warehouse. Of course, this operation too will be managed with Locus. “We could have waited for the new warehouse to be built before proceeding with the roll-out, but we didn’t have the luxury of time. Besides, Centric advised us to implement the WMS in the existing warehouses first, so our employees could get used to it. That will make the transition to the new warehouse a lot easier.”