Case Study Barilla

2004 Words5 Pages

Main Issue

Barilla’s manufacturing and distribution system continuous and growing burden due to tremendous demand fluctuations and variability on a weekly basis had Brando Vitali, former Director of Logistics, propose the idea of Just-In-Time- Distribution (JITD) as an alternative to Barilla’s traditional practice of delivering product to distributors on the basis of what orders they placed. Barilla’s own logistics organization would instead specify and determine the delivery quantities. This issue only deals specifically with Barilla’s Dry products which represents 75% of their sales. Issues with current traditional ordering method and JITD are analyzed and listed below:

Traditional Method

Immediate Issue:

Current distribution order procedures consist of most distributors checking their inventory levels and placing orders with Barilla once per week. Under this system, orders for Barilla dry products fluctuate greatly from week to week. Such extreme demand variability strained the manufacturing and logistics operations.

Systemic Issues:

Barilla fully-automated manufacturing system is not designed to meet and accommodate the large fluctuation demands. The manufacturing sequences of pasta production made it very difficult to produce particular types of pasta that had been sold out due to unexpected high demand. The temperature and humidity in the kiln is precisely specified for each size and shape of pasta and is tightly controlled to ensure a high quality product. Barilla’s pasta plants were also specialized by the type of pasta produced and even within the same pasta products family, individual products were assigned to plants based on shape and size. This procedure and requirements not only limits the manufacturing ability ...

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...products. I believe the focus should be on the independent retailers supplied from Barilla’s own warehouses and the retailers served by the distributors who had not signed onto the program. Barilla’s internally-owned regional warehouses distribute 35% of their products to small independent. Focusing on this segment could provide the opportunity for Barilla to collect the usage/demand data they need directly from the retailers. These retailers would become more committed to Barilla when they realized their orders would flow more efficiently and save them money on in-store inventory.

MONITOR & CONTROL

Measuring the success and implementation of JITD would be based on the “buy-in” and feed- back from the sales and marketing team and also all levels of distributors along with the ability to reduce the burden on the Manufacturing and Logistics organization with Barilla.

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