Successful Handling of Rising Volumes
Retailers and manufacturers rejoice over pre-Christmas sales, Black Friday’s online bargain hunting and special product launches, but the huge sales volumes these entail pose large challenges for logistics and fulfillment. Thanks to highly qualified employees and many years of experience in peak management, Arvato Supply Chain Solutions can demonstrate some of its particular strengths in this period: implementing complex processes reliably and reacting quickly and with flexibility even during peak periods.
“Above all else, efficient peak management means structured and orderly preparation on our part, so that we can manage peak periods through sensible planning,” says Thomas Becker, Executive Vice President Hightech & Entertainment at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions. But not all peaks can be foreseen. “Our customers can be creative when it comes to marketing and sales. We are sometimes given very little warning for upcoming marketing campaigns, or we first learn about them through a wave of orders at the warehouse."
A challenge for the experts who deal with the planning and implementation of complex processes along the entire supply chain on a daily basis and also have short-term solutions at hand to meet the requirements of customers and consumers at all times.
Our customers confirm that we are more flexible in our structures than other providers and often make the impossible possible.”
A structured and systematic approach to peak order volumes and sudden, dramatic increases in shipping quantities is an absolute must in the consumer-oriented sectors of Arvato Supply Chain Solutions, where volumes grow with each passing year. Sustainable peak management therefore consists of more than just the ability to set up and implement complex processes, or to respond flexibly and at short notice. It begins even earlier, with the planning of the distribution centers.
In the pre-Christmas period, the growing online business in particular always causes huge spikes, and these are getting more extreme and lasting longer each year. These periods differ from the peaks on specific days like Black Friday or the FIFA 19 release primarily due to their duration. Careful planning must be done to handle a very busy phase lasting several weeks, especially when it comes to human resources planning. Intelligent and adaptable process planning and implementation can make the difference in these cases, and simultaneously helps to prevent problems later on.
