INVENTORY MANAGEMENT: BY COMPUTER OR MANUALLY? The experience of a Belgium supermarket group

Abstract

Delhaize Freres is a Belgian supermarket group with 78 supermarkets and a large number of affiliated stores, selling grocery and a number of non‐food Tines including hardware and perfumery. M. Fourez, the technical director, here describes his company's experience on being confronted with the pressing question as to whether to computerise their inventory management or to do it manually. Their final view was that the use of computers did not offer a profitable solution to the problem, owing to the difficulty of including all categories of article in a limited number of easily usable models. But he adds that such a decision will depend on a company's own character, its own philosophy and its own markets; the final decision is an individual one for each company to take. This is a summary of a paper read at the CIES conference.

Citation

Fourez, F. (1975), "INVENTORY MANAGEMENT: BY COMPUTER OR MANUALLY? The experience of a Belgium supermarket group", Retail and Distribution Management, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 17-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb017830