With a history dating as far back as 1863, The Co-operative Group (TCG) is one of the largest retailers in the UK with over 3,750 outlets serving millions of customers each week. Made up of 5 different businesses, the Co-operative Group employs 70,000 colleagues with a turnover of over £9 billion. The Coop Food business is a high street staple and is instantly recognisable in the convenience sector, with multiple formats and sizes throughout the country.
We asked Dave Mowat, Retail Change, Delivery & Implementation Project Manager, who leads the project
“The Orridge team are able to mobilise their auditors to ensure our target sample is met, and deliver a first class service. Working with ourselves and our suppliers, they were able to design and implement robust auditing functionality within our project timeframes and have been able to evolve as our requirements have changed. The audit data they provide offers us a comprehensive and insightful view of delivery accuracy and allows us to focus our energy on solving the root cause issues. Orridge communicate with us throughout and are able to react to challenges quickly and efficiently.”
Our Role
Orridge have been working with The Co-op for a number of years supplying stock taking services across its entire estate of stores. It was this long standing relationship which led The Coop to engage with the Orridge supply chain team to help them roll out their “Green-Laning” program.
The Co-op recognised that a lot of time and effort was tied up in stores checking deliveries from suppliers who delivered direct to stores. The concept of Green-Laning was introduced to eradicate this task but with a small independent audit of these supplier deliveries to offer them assurances that delivery accuracy from suppliers did not deteriorate.
At the point when the nominated deliveries arrive at the store, the Orridge team will collect the delivery information from the driver and upload it onto our proprietary “Genius” platform. The flexibility of our Genius system has enabled us to develop a specific programme for the Co-op to accommodate the delivery checks and provide them with the data they require to manage the end to end “GreenLaning” process.
After we have uploaded the delivery details from the supplier, we then audit the physical deliveries and run a comparison report. Any short or over deliveries are validated by the supplier’s driver and signed for acceptance when agreed. The data we capture is sent back to the Co-op for further analysis and action.
Our auditors work very hard to ensure that the delivery driver is not head up for any longer than is necessary, and because we only audit deliveries in a representative sample of stores, most drivers on any given day are able to just drop and go.
The Benefits:
• Allows stores to focus on core customer facing tasks
• Audits carried out by independent expert Auditors
• Minimal impact to store or supplier operations
• Instant feedback of audit results allowing for action to be taken where possible
• Increased focus on supplier accuracy
• Quick and effective communication channels between auditors, The Co-op and their suppliers
