Morrisons turns off Safeway supply chain systems

Supermarket chain Morrisons is to get rid of the supply chain systems it inherited with the acquisition of Safeway.

The company has been struggling with the integration of Safeway's IT systems since the purchase early last year.

It has now decided to switch off Safeway's supply chain systems in all its warehouses and replace them with bespoke technology, meaning employees will have to revert to manual processes in some instances.

'As part of the conversion all depots are changing to the Morrisons sales management system,' said a spokesman for Morrisons. 'It is an integrated IT system that works for our business.'

Industry experts say Safeway's systems are generally regarded as technologically superior to those of Morrisons. Martin White, retail specialist for consultant Langsdale Crook and former Sainsbury's supply chain director, says that Morrisons' technology may not be able to cope now that the company has increased from 150 to 430 stores.

'Safeway had some quite sophisticated technology,' said White.

'It had systems that allowed it to do real-time store stock management, and fingerprint scanning technology for monitoring performance management, and it is my understanding that Morrisons does not have those,' he said. 'The question is whether the Morrisons system will be as robust after taking on Safeway - with its greater product range and different warehouse and store layout - as it was before.'

Teresa Jones, Butler Group senior research analyst, said: 'While technologies such as Safeway's add costs, it is likely that the cost of operating them is less than doing them manually.'