The word is now in everyone’s mouth when it comes to addressing the relationship between industry and trade: “Collaboration” …
CPFR C, Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment, the latest in methods management of the supply chain. After the GPA, Shared Supply Management, it is now a matter for manufacturers and distributors to take a new step: to bring their commercial information closer together. Born in the United States, the concept is applied by several companies.
In Europe, the idea is gaining ground and pilot companies are already setting the tone.”The CPFR is an open collaboration between distributors and suppliers,” says Yves David, director of transversal management and coordination at Casino. “It’s based on sharing planning information and activity forecasts.”Launched in 1996 by the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standards (VICS), the CPFR first developed in the United States, where it federated some forty major companies in the consumer goods sector, such as Gap, Nabisco, Procter & Gamble, Sears, Wal-Mart .
.. Then it was presented in Europe last March, at the ECR Europe Conference in Turin. Already successfully tested in Spain, Great Britain and Italy, the CPFR has attracted the interest of some forty French companies. Wishing to push further a partnership initiated for several years in the context of the shared management of supplies (GPA), some of them have been working since April on how to implement the CPFR in France.
This work, which takes place under the auspices of Gencod-EAN France and ECR France, brought together some thirty manufacturers, ten distributors and twelve service companies (consulting firms, software publishers).Their efforts quickly paid off, as the first French pilots will see the light of day this fall.”CPFR is not a new concept,” explains Thierry Jouenne, industrial strategy consultant at Gencod-EAN France. “It’s a process of integrating several long-known conceptsLogistical concepts, such as the GPA, shared management of supplies, which initiated the industry-trade partnership.
But also concepts of category management, such as the optimization of promotions, the introduction of new products or the optimization of the assortment. The CPFR is based on cooperation between two partners who agree to reconcile their commercial information. “Process therefore, because it was not born ex nihilo, the CPFR concretizes an old dream: a collaborative and global management of the supply chain, which allows to directly connect the stores to the factories.
