Barilla Spa Case Study

Barilla Spa Case Study

Introduction

Barilla Spa, the largest pasta producer in the world in 1990, was founded in Parma in 1875 by who gave his name, Pietro Barilla, being no more than a small pasta and bread shop. He was in charge of Richard, and after Pietro and Gianni, son and grandchildren of P. Barilla respectively. The latter were those who managed to prevail in a dense, competitive market with high quality product with an important and innovative marketing. They ventured in ambitious projects to maintain and increase business growth, such as building a large plant, which the indebted and forced to sell the company to the multinational WR Grace Inc., which made significant investments and launched a new product line of pastries, but finally seeing financially troubled company again sold to Pietro Barilla child. Since then successfully revived Barilla was coming to have a remarkable market share in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, and to be considered the largest pasta manufacturer in the world.

Barilla had a wide network of plants, including flour milling, pasta production plants and fresh bread, plants specialized products (pastries), and a pilot production plant for testing and developing new products and production processes.

From the plants, the products manufactured are distributed, depending on the category to which they correspond: dried or fresh, as these determine the shelf life of each, and therefore the time limit for delivery to the final seller. Most products are shipped from processing plants to central distribution centers (CDC) Barilla, keeping them fresh for 3 days and a month of dry stock. From the CDC, fresh produce were bought by independent agents who distributed them among 70 regional warehouses in Italy, where he held stocks for three days. About two thirds of Barilla's dry products were purchased by distributors, some two weeks of stock, and these in turn were sent to supermarkets, where they were 10 to 12 days in stock. The remaining products, which did not pass through the CDC, were given to 18 small stores Barilla, from which were sent to small businesses known as Signora Maria, supermarket chains and independent supermarkets.

Discussion

This form of distribution was with great difficulty, constantly orders were received by the processing plants of the CDC were very fluctuating for dry, and the reason is explained by reviewing the ordering system of the distribution chain, considering only the dry product distribution through the CDC, which is the focus of the reason for such fluctuations. The last stations of the chain of distribution of Barilla products, i.e. supermarkets, carried out their orders according to changes in demand for these products every day reviewing the products to be replenished on the shelves. These orders should be delivered in the next 24 to 48 hours, requiring a rapid response from distributors, so you should have the stock required to meet the requests of products. According to the requirements, dealers, in turn, made their orders weekly to CDC, which would be delivered within the next 8 to 14 days, ...