To up its competitive advantage in the billion-dollar-a-year pet industry, Pet Supplies Plus, transitioned from an all-franchise business model to one with corporate stores and consolidated its distribution centers (DCs) from two sites to one. To enable the DC conversion the retailer needed a new inventory management system with increased features and next-gen functionality. It chose Inventory Optimization (IO) from Manhattan Associates, and following this year’s implementation, Pet Supplies Plus saw a 95% in-stock level, an over 99% order-fill rate, and a 10% reduction of inventory value.
Additionally, Pet Supplies Plus lowered its overall inventory investment while improving customer service. It can now hit its desired in-stock levels and achieve inventory turns in the most profitable way, overcoming complex retail, wholesale and omnichannel inventory management challenges. Before the Manhattan implementation, Pet Supplies Plus replenished its inventories manually from a network of wholesalers. Standardizing and automating DC replenishment was a key part of the program’s success.
“The forecasting and replenishment challenges faced included merchandise categories that had fast and slow-moving items, promotions, perishables and import considerations,” said Scott Fenwick, senior director, Manhattan Associates. “The nature of the company’s business presents a high degree of inventory complexity that had to be optimized in order to achieve the maximum return on investment.
Pet Supplies Plus also relies on Manhattan’s Warehouse Management for Open Systems (WMOS), Labor Management (LM), Slotting Optimization and Supply Chain Intelligence (SCI) to run its supply chain. “We had four main goals in deploying Manhattan’s solutions: simplify business processes, reduce inventory investment, improve order accuracy and increase labor productivity,” said Jeff Suttle, senior vice president, supply chain, Pet Supplies Plus. “The features and functions of Manhattan’s solutions are very robust and flexible. We’ve already seen big value from this investment.”
