“THE FINAL WORD” Do you want the final word on this page? Write to thefinalword@dtmagazine.dk
Streamline the store Space management takes time and effort to introduce – but it pays off. Sometimes you have to go through a lot of trials and tribulations before your efforts pay off. The 150 employees of the Cheapy branches in Southern Sweden know this from expe rience. During the summer of 2007, all the branches were streamlined under a shared space management project, which meant serious reorganisation of the fittings and furnishings in each and every store. “To start with, the employees were rather sceptical, but this is often the case when major changes are made,” says Benjamin Carlsson, Team Leader at the Varberg branch. However, six months after the reorganisation, the initial
We are 8729 colleagues
worries have been dispelled by the tangible everyday benefits that the project has generated. “It has become much easier to keep track of what items we have in stock, and we now have clear goals for our level of service,” relates Benjamin Carlsson. Cheapy branches are to have 99 per cent of their priority items in stock, and 98 per cent of the other items. “And in contrast to the situation previously, we now simply have to check the list of figures. Before the streamlining project, it was very difficult to build up an overview.” Benjamin Carlsson estimates that the occasions on which he has had to disappoint customers by telling them that an item was out of stock have fallen by 20–30 per cent. As a result of the streamlining project, all 22 Cheapy branches are now laid out identically, which makes it much easier for people to find their way around them: both for customers who may be shopping in a store other than their regular one, and for employees transferring to a new workplace. Cheapy primarily uses the shelves for storage, and an identical amount of space has been set aside for items in all the branches, which has helped the staff eliminate an otherwise irritating problem: the fact that previously, the branches often received deliveries of goods for which they did not have space.
(as of July 31st 2007)