o C putting your technical products together. By bringing it in-house, I've ensured that everyone has a technical training. Because of this they can spot errors or defects from a mile away. In other words, we spot them before the customer spots them. Apart from protecting our reputation, this also prevents additional costs of putting things right. "By bringing things in-house, we also significantly reduce overheads. You immediately remove the need for account managers, contract managers and a whole host of additional support staff who never physically handle the product. Third parties are usually contracted for a limited number of years, so there's limited incentive to invest in tailor-made solutions that can save time and money. For example, in our warehouse right now, we're reconfiguring racking which will enable us to fit the new David XL Green in as little space as possible. At the end Configurating warehouse space allows innovative product designs to be stored more efficiently of the day, space is not only expensive, but the system uses valuable resources to heat and light it." Maintaining a minimum amount of stock has been key to meeting more than 98% of their delivery deadlines. If stock had to be delivered directly from the manufacturer, lead times would be more than 20 weeks. "In an ideal world, with accurate forecasts, this would work fine," explains Ton. "Take the David Green draught system for example. Sales are very dependent on things like the weather. As soon as the first sunshine appears in a country, customers start thinking about setting up terraces. In these situations, they want their new draught installation tomorrow and not in six months. We can now react to this demand and, in turn, help customers to maximise their sales." Reduced Stock Holding "Because of the globally centralised stock holding, our stock levels can be kept to a real minimum. Taking the climate example, if the warm weather comes early in one country and orders unexpectedly exceed forecasts unexpectedly, it is just as probable that in another country, the warm weather is delayed and people don't order. So more often than not, overall demand stays quite constant, which means centralised holding enables us to control our stock more effectively." With so many different branded versions of HEINEKEN's draught equipment, this wouldn't work if the David Green system arrived complete. Every single brand combined with different variants, such as different voltage compressors for different markets, would have to be stocked. To solve this, there is a small assembly area in the warehouse to put the final installation together with 18 World of HEINEKEN Edition 1 2013 Bringing operations in-house allows errors to be spotted easily and early, preventing them reaching customers

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World of Heineken | 2013 | | pagina 18