Magazine distributor saves up to £5m a year with new supply chain software

Frontline has improved its inventory visibility and order fulfilment by implementing Sterling Order Management

Magazine distribution firm Frontline has improved its inventory visibility and order fulfilment throughout its network of 40 warehouses and distribution outlets by implementing a new order management system.

The firm's CIO estimates that the combination of its supply chain technologies will now save the company, which distributes magazines including Closer, Heat and Radio Times, between £3m and £5m each year.

The company implemented Sterling Order Management from IBM company Sterling Commerce, which offers Frontline global inventory visibility across its publishing and printing supply chain.

This enables the company to make real-time informed decisions on how and where to fulfil orders, and adjust stock holdings accordingly.

The technology is integrated within Frontline's in-house bespoke allocation system, which uses SAS business analytics software and Java technology, and calculates the optimum order level of magazines for each store.

"What Sterling Order Management enables us to do on top of that is use the stock more efficiently than we've been able to in the past," explained Frontline CIO Greg Hayden.

"Effectively, what it says is that you can determine stock-holding points in the supply chain and you can route the product to the point where it's most needed.

"The big problem with magazines is that predicting demand is quite difficult and they're a sale or return item as well. If the publisher prints 300,000 or 400,000 copies and 100,000 don't sell, the publisher takes the cost of that. So the cost savings that we've made are around [improving] that process and managing the flow of inventory in a more effective manner."

Hayden said the next step for Frontline is to move into knowledge management. Given that the business operates as a complex series of alliances and partnerships, being able to share information across the business is important, particularly where confidentiality is a key requirement.

"There are very strict walls about what each publisher is allowed to see about another, because in many cases they are competitors," he said.