bakery with a big vision goes digital
Each day, the Elonen Oy bakery in Jämsä, in the Central Region of Finland, produces its delicious baked goods for consumption in its cafés and for customer purchase at retailers across Finland. Elonen employs approximately 250 people in its main facility to bake and package cakes, breads, cookies and other goods for regional and national distribution.
To utilize data more effectively, the company has been cooperating with IBM and Houston Analytics, part of Unikie for years. At first, Elonen wanted to address the final step in the packaging process, the printing and sorting of product labels before shipping. The process was largely manual and very time-consuming, which led to shipping delays. Product data and customer data resided in separate, outsourced databases, and the bakery had difficulty connecting the two as it packed and shipped orders.
With its existing, outsourced ordering system, Elonen couldn’t analyze or manipulate the data to print the shipping labels based on product or delivery location. The packing station was really the bottleneck in the operations. So we needed to look at the whole process — from when the order was received until the items went out on the truck.
Tapping data to improve business processes
IBM and Houston Analytics, part of Unikie, joined with Elonen to apply data and analytics to overcome the growing bottleneck in its warehouse activities. The project began with evaluating and mapping the bakery’s systems and data sources. After creating a transformation roadmap for Elonen, Houston Analytics created a synchronized data model and implemented a data warehouse so Elonen could connect and tap into the data from its various outsourced systems. This data warehouse can now be used as the basis for forecasting, analytics and predictions to support future digital transformation projects at Elonen.
Using the IBM® ILOG® CPLEX® Optimization Studio Elonen can streamline and create efficiencies in the labeling and packing process. The solution analyzes the incoming order data to optimize both packing and label printing. Elonen can print the labels by customer, delivery route, delivery date or any other parameter.
Getting the baked goods out faster
Elonen has made an important start on its journey toward data-driven digital transformation. After optimizing its order management, printing, labeling and packing processes, the bakery’s supply chain efficiency increased by more than 20% thanks to higher worker productivity.
Elonen expects to realize other efficiencies from the system. A new dashboard lets warehouse managers track and manage the orders as they come in, including how many pallets will be needed and when. For the first time, the bakery has visibility into future orders a day or even weeks in advance, giving it the option to pre-pack items to improve efficiency. As Jari Elonen states, “One good dashboard is better than 100 reports.”
Houston Analytics, part of Unikie, played a key role in redesigning the warehouse processes to capitalize on Elonen’s new visibility into, and ability to analyze and use, customer and order data to improve efficiency. Elonen expects that this improved flexibility and efficiency will ultimately result in better delivery service to its customers. As the company grows, the streamlined packing process will be critical to meeting the increasing demand for its products.
The bakery now has a big data and analytics solution that it can use in other areas of its business. Elonen has already highlighted its key priorities for the future, and Houston Analytics helped create a roadmap of what it can do next with the data warehouse and analytics solutions.
“This also bridges to our future focus,” says Jari Elonen. “Market fragmentation drives us to better understand consumer needs so we can improve our assortment and offer what consumers in each trading area want to buy. This will also generate more value to our retail partners.”
Key results
Increased Efficiency
Significantly improved packing and labeling process efficiency.
Enhanced Productivity
Boosted supply chain efficiency by more than 20% through greater work productivity.
