Largest global flower auction cooperative is implementing Blue Yonder’s WMS
Royal FloraHolland was in the midst of a digital transformation when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Thanks to its supply chain solutions provider, Blue Yonder, Royal FloraHolland was able to accelerate the move to Blue Yonder’s SaaS-based warehouse management solution (WMS), powered by Microsoft Azure, to manage and support its high-volume fulfillment logistics in its warehouses.
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“In addition, we are looking forward to digitally connecting our warehouses and online trading platform with Blue Yonder and Microsoft Azure more and more.”
Royal FloraHolland is a Dutch cooperative in the international floriculture sector with more than 3,700 members, 5,000 suppliers and over 2,400 buyers, and handles 90% of the Dutch flower and plant trading. The cooperative processes more than 95,000 transactions per day with over 24,000 different species of flowers and plants. The cooperative’s four main Dutch-based auctions/warehouse locations needed to be better connected and move from push logistics to a pull logistics focus in a fulfillment hub and network setting.
With Blue Yonder, Royal FloraHolland will be able to:
- Build a floriculture supply chain infrastructure for growers and their buyers.
- Gain more end-to-end visibility from growers (greenhouse) to hubs and their buyers.
- Transition from auction-based (supply-driven) logistics to fulfillment and order picking (demand-driven) logistics over the coming period.
“Once our digital transformation with Blue Yonder is complete, we will have a more optimal supply chain from growers to their buyers. In our strategy we are moving from a traditional supply-driven distribution process to a demand-driven order picking process, enabled by WMS. We will also organize the logistics of direct trade and clock trade in a combined process. With this new, bundled logistics, flowers and plants will be delivered to buyers reliably and quickly,” said Marc van den Boogaard, Business Technology Manager, Operations & Supply Chain, Royal FloraHolland. “In addition, we are looking forward to digitally connecting our warehouses and online trading platform with Blue Yonder and Microsoft Azure more and more.”
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Blue Yonder’s WMS will allow Royal FloraHolland to fully digitize its warehouses and gain improved inbound and outbound visibility into shipments, as well as optimize operations to ensure accuracy, timeliness, efficiency, and compliance. The cooperative is looking to implement Luminate Warehouse Tasking next. This will further enable task optimization through advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to eliminate congestion and improve completion throughput.
“By migrating to a SaaS-based WMS, Royal FloraHolland will gain the ability to analyze data to make insightful decisions and acquire end-to-end visibility that will help their supply chain efficiency. Managing the expectations of all their stakeholders while simultaneously transforming the way they do business is not an easy task, but Royal FloraHolland is doing it successfully with the guidance of the Blue Yonder team. For that, I am extremely proud of the work we are doing and look forward to seeing their transformation,” said Johan Reventberg, EMEA president, Blue Yonder.
