According to Manufacturing Computer Solutions, the Hovis bread production division of Premier Foods has seen a 7% (£400k) reduction in its annual gas costs, thanks to the implementation of Idhammar Systems’ OEE Management System software. Savings in labour unit cost and product wastage have also been delivered.

Idhammer’s OEE system provides automatic measurement, monitoring and reporting tools to highlight areas of inefficiency needing analysis and action. Concretely, it has enabled Hovis bread production to address the impact of unplanned production stops, slow running equipment, shortage of materials and wrong date codes.

The programme to roll out the OEE system across all the RHM divisions was begun in 2004, with the Hovis bread production (British Bakeries) implementations completed in 2005, and the Rank Hovis flour mills implemented in 2006.

In addition, the Campbells business, acquired by Premier Foods in 2006, had a similar Idhammar OEE rollout programme back in 2003.

The integration of FatWire with the existing Colruyt back-end was undertaken by software architect and web developer Jef Waumans, who also delivered a proof-of-concept for enriching Colruyt’s ColliShop website with ‘Rich Internet’ or Web2.0 widgets.

Colruyt intends to move to FatWire for the conception and publication of all its e-commerce sites, for all Colruyt subsidiaries, within the coming 3 to 5 years.

So without further ado, here’s my take on Gartner’s top ten things retailers need to know about social networks:

10. Web 2.0

There is a distinction between social sites and social platforms, and the possibilities of the latter, with its widgets and applets, are practically infinite.

9. Gravity

The big bang of social networking has left a myriad of sites out there. But the pull of gravity from the larger sites like Facebook and MySpace is attracting and concentrating the population.

8. Word-of-mouth discussions

Hey, folks like to talk about retailers and products, passing on word about their good experiences, and warnings about the bad. As with review and price-comparison sites, social network sites provide an online conduit for such expression.

7. Word-of-mouth relationships

Social network sites go one step further, by actually formalising or describing the relationships between the folks talking about retailers and products. Who are your friends? Who are your colleagues? The social network sites know.

6. Viral

Social networking gives vitamins to the concept of viral propogation. Although really viral is just a new term for word-of-mouth (viral marketing is dead, tell all your friends), so I think Gartner is repeating themselves here.

5. Applets

Applications for social network sites are relatively easy to build. Gartner suggests there are opportunities in retail areas such as customer service, product selection guides and feedback mechanisms.

4. Consumer Data

Social networks have lots of personal data about lots of people, and those people are all potential shoppers and consumers. Privacy issues will come up, but people are often willing to trade off privacy if they get something of perceived value in return.

3. Rejection

Social networks can tolerate or even profit from retailer presence, but there is such a thing as overkill. Too much interaction can elicit rejection. A social network swamped in advertising will be deserted and left to die.

2. No Shopping

Social networks are not a suitable platform for actual commerce. Yet. Gartner advises retailers against becoming an early adopter (aka guinea pig).

1. Mobile

Social networks are even now moving onto mobile platforms (eg your mobile phone) and therefore into the real-time world. And wouldn’t retailers like to be there with them.

The full Gartner report is available here.

At the front end is a new on-line workspace, designed to act as a portal to the company’s information and knowledge. Initially rolled out to some 2000 P&G users, the workspace is intended at term (2010) to provide decision-support information to more than 30000 users.

At the back end, BEA AquaLogic systems provide the foundation for P&G’s new service-oriented architecture: data sourcing and serving, integration and messaging, and a security layer to protect confidential and sensitive information.

Our vision is a fundamental transformation of the way we operate: using innovative technologies to help us work smarter, faster and more efficiently. BEA is an important contributor to that vision.
Filippo Passerini, CIO and Global Services Officer, Procter & Gamble.

Computerweekly reports that Procter & Gamble expect the new BEA platform to enable them to significantly leverage existing IT application investment through increased code re-use.

The BEA SOA platform allows P&G to integrate existing business applications, from SAP to custom-built tools in J2E and .net. Applications and code modules are catalogued and then made available as services through the portal to enable re-use by other parts of the business.

Terry McFadden, P&G’s associate director for enterprise architecture, said in the initial rollout to the 2000 pilot users, the company had achieved up to 25% re-use of internally developed code. P&G expects at term to be able to re-use up to half of its internally developed application code as it rolls out SOA across its business.

We have a myriad of businesses and business units in the organisation, but many require the same information and by implementing an SOA it means we can develop functionality with re-use in mind to cut application development costs.
Terry McFadden, Associate Director for Enterprise Architecture, Procter & Gamble.

At three of Sainsbury’s distribution centres, the existing warehouse management system has been interfaced with Vocollect Talkman devices using VoiteQ’s Voiceman middleware.

The Talkman is a wearable voice computer with a headset and microphone and a wireless network connection. No longer needing to use paper-based pick lists to determine the items to be picked and prepared for dispatch, the picker now receives spoken instructions providing the required details (location, item, quantity). The picker can then respond vocally with the verification of the product and quantity he’s picked.

Despite only recently implementing voice we have already seen significant benefits – accuracy has improved by over 1% to 99.99% and productivity is anticipated to increase by the end of 2008. We have made a significant investment in this new system, but believe with this increase in efficiency we will quickly attain our return on investment.
Nick Symmons, Head of Supply Chain and Convenience Systems, Sainsbury’s.

The merger, which could take six to twelve months to close, will see Mars paying $80 cash for each share of Wrigley stock in what amounts to a $23 billion deal.

The combined Mars and Wrigley will now overtake Cadbury as the world’s biggest confectionery company, with an estimated global market share of 14.4 per cent.

The deal is hopefully particularly good news for Wrigley, which has not been able to fully leverage its brands in the past and could profit from the size of Mars and its strength in innovation. Last year Wrigley conceded 3 points of gum share to Cadbury, thanks to growth in new products such as gum proposing dental benefits.

In a roundabout way, Cadbury probably also profits from this deal: its biggest rival bidder for Hershey is likely out of the picture for good. A new offer from Cadbury seems likely now that Wrigley (who came close to buying Hershey in 2002) is out of the way.

With PC Guys, Tesco is now running a pilot out of a store in Bar Hill, near Cambridge, including in-store, in-home and telephone support, and an enlarged computer, electricals and telecommunications area in the store, with PC Guys available to help.

Tesco said: “We want to help consumers keep up with the latest electronic trends and technologies, as well as provide support and maintenance to those who need a helping hand.

“PC Guys will help our customers at the Bar Hill store not only make better-informed purchasing decisions for electronic equipment, but deliver the very best levels of ongoing support – either at the store, over the phone or in their home.”

Presumably the success of the pilot will determine whether Tesco decides to tackle DSGi’s The Tech Guys, Carphone Warehouse’s Geek Squad and Comet’s Comet on Call services head on and roll out the concept across the UK.

A high profile CIO (recently voted CIO of the year at the fifth annual CNET Networks UK Business Technology awards), Cobain is known as the man behind the “Tesco in a box” systems and operating model that enabled Tesco’s ambitious global expansion successes, notably the opening of their first US stores earlier this month.

According to a Tesco spokesman: “Colin is seeking a new challenge outside Tesco and we’re thankful for his significant contribution to the IT infrastructure at Tesco and wish him well for the future.”

More at silicon.com.

An article in IT Pro yesterday covered Henkel’s choice of Ipanema Technolgies’ Application Traffic Management System – actually announced back in July (pdf).

Steffen Gelessus, Systems Manager at Henkel, remarked “the use of the Ipanema system is a genuine quantum leap for us. With its finely calibrated monitoring and reporting functions, we obtain a more detailed overview of network traffic and can thus plan our capacities precisely and optimize the network.”

The Ipanema system was for us the ‘enabler’ to make full use of the MPLS technology benefits.

For more, see the case study on Ipanema’s site (pdf).

Findings from a new research study called “The Digital Shelf” by comScore, Yahoo, Proctor & Gamble and the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), show significant use of the Internet to search for consumer packaged goods, and suggest correlation between online activity and offline purchase behaviour, lending credibility to the argument that there may be significant brand-building and sales-growth opportunities in search marketing.

Categories studied included baby care, personal care, home care, and packaged food. In the three months of the study, food product searches dominated, but searches for baby products and personal care products were also significant, with the majority of searches motivated by product research and the hope of finding help in making a purchase decision.