Working together towards a smarter, customer-oriented supply chain

Only together with you - grower, buyer and employee - can Royal FloraHolland fulfil its ambition to be the international floriculture marketplace of the future. The world is changing rapidly. And Royal FloraHolland is changing with it. With today's challenges, we understand better than anyone that logistics must be flexible, efficient and reliable. Logistics connect the entire supply chain, from grower to buyers. As a spider in the web, Royal FloraHolland sees opportunities to organise that supply chain together with logistics partners, growers & buyers in a smarter and more customer-oriented way.

Chief Operations Officer Leendert-Jan Plaisier says: "Part of our strategy is to set up our logistics to keep pace with the wishes and needs of growers and buyers. An example is the desire of buyers to determine the delivery time themselves. Or the preference of growers to supply products for auction clock and direct combined, or even to outsource the logistics completely."

You decide: set up logistics the way it suits you

With Select Delivery, buyers at Rijnsburg and Naaldwijk can already determine whether they want to receive Auction presales (KVV) early (before 08.00) or clock purchases later (10.00-13.00). And there is still much in the pipeline. In several pilots, we are testing more time slots with buyers, supplying at a different hub or priority delivery, as well as today-for-tomorrow auctioning.

Leendert-Jan: "Besides meeting customers' needs, we also want to spread delivery times better: supplying (or to deliver) earlier or later gives the regular operation more air. This allows us to spread the work and allows our employees to work more hours in a day. Buyers' experiences with Select Delivery are very positive. That tastes like more, I sense from many."

Real-life stories

For example, Sander Hogenboom of Sanders Fleurs, initially sceptical about order picking, says he gets much more rest from having Auction presales transactions delivered early. Sander further says: "I am also currently using the auction clock pilot Select Delivery 10.00 - 13.00 on Fridays. This gives me better loaded trolleys, so I don't have to bulk up as much." Read Sander's story.

Danny van Bergen Henegouwen, director of buying of cut flowers at FM Group, is also positive. "It helps us tremendously. Before, we only had the auction sequence as an indication of the delivery time and we sometimes had to wait very long for the last products to arrive. Now with time slot delivery, it works much better for us: we have more direction. I now know what time my last lot will be in." Read how better distribution helps FM Group.

Further optimise by combining

"We can optimise the supply chain even further by auctioning clock and direct handling in one process," Plaisier says. "And that can be done with order picking. That also means: one way of supply, and in the long run even standardisation of stickering. We make many growers and buyers really happy with that. We realise this variety of supply chain optimisation together with Floriday. In combination with Floriday and Floriway, opportunities also arise to optimise transport. So the currently fragmented supply chain is gradually making way for a data-driven and efficient logistics network. A network that benefits everyone, of that I am convinced."