Customer Story
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts
Krispy Kreme has a high level of confidence in Assure iTERA HA
The key to Krispy Kreme Doughnut’s brand building effort is their ability to serve hot, fresh doughnuts at convenient outlets any time of the day.
To ensure that customers get the freshest baked goods possible Krispy Kreme maintains a complex supply chain that is managed with sophisticated technology. 100 percent system reliability is required for these core systems. An interruption in system availability could have a seriously negative impact on Krispy Kreme.
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts has an aggressive inventory control process that involves replacing products that are just a few hours old. If any of its computing processes fail, the delivery of fresh inventory could be disrupted.
Krispy Kreme manages its wholesale operation with an EDI solution from EXTOL that runs on an IBM i server. This system, along with remittance processing, accounts receivable, accounts payable, sales reporting and other applications serves 400 users.
In addition to supporting a demanding supply chain initiative, Krispy Kreme also relies on an electronic billing system to invoice its customers. This system can generate thousands of invoices each month for big retail outlets and delayed billings can seriously impacted cash flow.
Krispy Kreme sells its products in 293 store-factories, 90 satellite locations, and countless supermarkets throughout the US and in eight other countries. According to Greig Radford, manager of System i Technology, “We have trading partners sending information to our EDI system all the time and if it’s not available then we could have problems. This could cause a serious ripple in our supply chain that would hurt our wholesale operation.”
From its retail manufacturing facilities Krispy Kreme delivers to other outlets only what each one can sell within a four-hour shift, and then it follows up with fresh shipments a few hours later as demand requires.
Krispy Kreme’s Manager of System i Technology, Grieg Radford, decided to implement Assure iTERA HA from Precisely based on advice given to him by friends who were familiar with the product. Technicians at Precisely’s development and training facility in Salt Lake City, Utah, helped install the product on Krispy Kreme’s production IBM i server, and remotely on a backup system. “The installation procedure is very straightforward because all you really have to do is provide access to your system and they handle it for you,” says Radford.
