Hold The Anchovies: Papa John's Pizza Orders 'Optimization Supreme' With Manhattan's Supply Chain Process Platform

when you're one of the largest pizza companies in the world, with more than 3,000 restaurants, maintaining efficient, cost-effective operations throughout your supply chain is essential to continued success. Even though growth was on the fast track, Louisville, Kentucky-based Papa John's International, Inc. was still hampered by supply chain inventory, visibility and accuracy challenges that were impacting its businesses.

"We were having to use outside storage for inventory that ended up being written off because its shelf life ran out before we could ship it to the restaurants," says Susan Kinder, director, operations services. "That created a domino effect that caused us to pay too much for everything in the supply chain. But without visibility, we had no way of knowing how those truckload orders were impacting everything else."

The company was also facing what Kinder calls "a perfect storm" of substantial increases in commodity prices, fuel and the minimum wage—three critical elements in the food and restaurant industries. Complicating those challenges were Papa John's ongoing limited-time consumer offers, which require immediate supply chain responses to temporary spikes in demand. Without adequate performance metrics or a system to provide operational guidance, all of these challenges were being addressed manually with spreadsheets, maps and decisions based on personal experience.