Home Hardware Streamlines Buying Through Inventory Visibility

By Bob Johns

September 2013 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

The Canadian co-op is able to reduce excess inventory by 10% through the implementation of a new replenishment system.

Home Hardware is a co-op wholesaler owned by more than 1,000 independent business operators with three distribution centers across Canada. As the co-op has grown, it has outgrown its legacy fulfillment solution. The company works with more than 2,600 suppliers and services its four banners, Home Hardware, Home Hardware Building Centres, Home Building Centres, and Home Furniture. Keeping the inventory for each of these brands was becoming costly and cumbersome, creating inefficiencies in both time and stock levels.

Inventory control manager, Steve Allgeier, worked with a team of fulfillment and IT professionals to locate a solution allowing them to streamline inventory operations, create better planning, and reduce out-of-stocks. Like many retail implementations, the exploratory phase took several years, with the co-op landing on the CLARITY solution from Blue Ridge.

First, the co-op sent representatives to Blue Ridge to conduct what they call an investigation. The two companies went through all of the inventory, purchasing, pricing, availability and any other available data to see what information was available to build a working custom model of the inventory management solution. Based on the results from the demo, the decision was made to go with the CLARITY solution.