Company News • 04.09.2008

Torex streamlines workforce allocation in Knauber do-it-yourself and craft outlets

Knauber

In 1880, Anna and Michael Knauber opened a convenience store in Bonn, Germany. At that time no one anticipated that they had laid the foundations for a family business that would grow into a company of considerable size with nine do-it-yourself (DIY) and craft outlets across the country and over 1.000 employees. Carl Knauber Holding GmbH & Co. KG. now also comprises Gas, Mineral Oil and Contracting subsidiaries with a combined revenue of €470 Million in 2006.

In contrast to the large DIY chains, Knauber has diversified to offer a broad range of craft and hobby merchandise. As a result seventy percent of Knauber’s customers are women and the company places particular emphasis on the customer experience in store, through product presentation, product mix and providing high levels of customer consultancy and service.

When senior management at Knauber noticed a decrease in productivity coupled with a significant increase in staffing costs they decided to replace existing manually intensive processes with a modern, efficient POS system and an integrated workforce management solution throughout their DIY business. Torex™ WFM-HCM (formerly Lucas WM) and Torex™ OSCAR-POS (formerly Lucas OSM) proved to be ideal for the company’s needs.
 

The Challenge

Knauber set out to replace its paper-based staff management processes with a professional workforce management solution that could be rolled out across all its stores and integrate with the company’s head office systems to automatically transfer data. The system needed to be flexible enough to cope with changes in business hours, employment legislation, and the changing shopping habits of Knauber’s customers. In particular Knauber sought to improve and enhance the customer experience while reducing costs in human resources by introducing a flexible and demand-driven staff scheduling system.

“The new workforce scheduling solution needed to complement the demands of the stores as closely as possible. Our aim was to improve the quality of service and increase revenues, while creating a better overview of all processes for directors and employees, without introducing an attendance recording system. We were walking a tightrope between bureaucracy and improved efficiency,” said Hasan Cürük, head of organization and IT at Knauber.

The first step in the search for a solution was to engage all stakeholders; including corporate management, work council, branch managers and employees, in the strategic planning process. The project was launched by the corporate management team, giving it the highest priority internally and underlining its significance to the company. An internal project team was formed to define the requirements of the software and was instrumental in ensuring employee support for the new working practices.
 

The Solution

Following a competitive evaluation and testing solutions from several software suppliers Knauber chose to implement Torex WFM-HCM.

“The clear choice was Torex. We sought a solution that would be sensitive to the individual characteristics of our business, including the changing demand for employees that varies according to the season or time of day. We also needed the capacity to deploy our workforce across all departments” explained Cürük.

To ensure a trouble free implementation Torex WFM-HCM was rolled out in two stages. Stage one involved a trial in three outlets focusing on staff allocation. Stage two involved the full roll out to all nine stores and also focused on determining a realistic revenue per head target that took into account special promotions, sales activities on the floor and historical trading patterns.

Alongside the Torex WFM-HCM implementation and following a three week test pilot Knauber also decided to roll-out Torex OSCAR-POS in all of its branches.

All Knauber stores are now equipped with five to seven Torex OSCAR-POS terminals at check out, with the flagship outlet in Bonn scaling to 14 terminals. Staff were given the choice between keyboard or touch-screen terminals. Touch-screens won out based on ease of use, and the intuitive graphical interface for navigating complex screens.

The central Torex OSCAR-POS server communicates with an Oracle database and each store has its own server. All stores are connected via DSL to a Virtual Private Network to ensure the secure and independent operation of all workstations The accounting and finance data is provided by the central database with Torex OSCAR-POS enabling straight forward processing of all billing data. Updates and targeting of approximately ten sales promotions per week is also managed from headquarters and relayed to the outlets. The promotions are targeted and analyzed using a CRM system.
 

The Results

Today, Torex WFM-HCM has been deployed in all nine Knauber outlets, and has received very positive feedback from everyone in the organization; from company directors to store managers. Every 15 minutes, the POS system feeds turnover and customer headcount information directly into the staff allocation module, ensuring the right staff are at the right point at the right time.

Torex WFM-HCM has streamlined internal processes by automatically generating charts which outline annual and monthly staff schedule plans. But above all, customers now benefit from a more seamless checkout process making their overall shopping experience with Knauber even more convenient.

Guido Lemmer, head of organization, logistics and enterprise resource planning at Knauber explains some of the benefits they have realised: “Torex WFM-HCM has enabled us to reduce employee overtime by approximately 20 percent. Additional synergy comes from consolidating information at a group level and mapping it to further assist in demand profiling. The 7,000 plus manually scripted allocation schedules we had to set-up in the past are now history.”

Using Torex WFM-HCM, Knauber is able to continuously work to increase revenues and reduce costs. From the experiences gained to date Knauber has been able to prove the importance of staff allocation planning beyond isolated departments. The company now plans to use Torex WFM-HCM to meet future challenges, including managing absenteeism across the enterprise and the analysis of workforce demand and assignment planning to optimise revenue forecasts.
 

Torex WFM-HCM

Torex WFM-HCM is a complete solution for retailers to plan their workforce management needs, ensuring that resources are utilised efficiently and costs are reduced. Torex WFM-HCM is a modular solution that can be easily and quickly customised to meet the retailer’s specific needs, achieving substantial cost savings through targeted staff planning and deployment, reduced processing times and greater accuracy in accounting and reporting.
 

Torex OSCAR-POS

Torex OSCAR-POS provides sophisticated Point of Service (POS), administration and management functionality for fast moving retail environments. Torex OSCAR-POS is designed to meet the highest levels of customer service through efficient management of transactions across the whole value chain. Torex OSCAR-POS ensures accurate sales and stock management, as well as giving retailers real-time visibility and control over their business operations.

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