Mr. Jean-Louis Müller, representative CEO for ‘Française de Gastronomie’, comments: "The snail business is a very specific field. We only work with natural raw material, exclusively collected by wild gathering; therefore we totally depend on weather hazards. The scorching heat of 2003 hit Europe very hard, diminishing our source of supply by 20% - no small factor! Thus our supply plan can change from one week to another, and it is sometimes necessary to change the production site simply because of bad weather conditions in one region or another."

He adds, "We are also confronted with a strong seasonality characteristic of our business. In fact, 70% to 90% of our turnover are realized during the last three months of the year, due to the Christmas and New Year holidays. Practically speaking, it is essential that each of our customers is satisfied with our products, but most especially that he can find them in the desired quantity and timeframe on the counters. But basing on the forecasts of mass distribution is not always very reliable. That is why it has become essential for us to anticipate more and in a more precise manner our customers’ needs, in order to produce consequently whilst mastering perfectly our supply chain."

After an initial market study carried out on 20 Supply Chain Management solutions, ‘Française de Gastronomie’ consulted five editors in June 2003, among who were three major pre-selected players: DynaSys, FuturMaster and Infologic (ERP supplier of ‘Française de Gastronomie’). Last December, DynaSys was retained for its Supply Chain Planning collaborative solutions: n.SKEP Demand Planning – for sales forecast management, and n.SKEP Production Planning – for synchronized planning of production and supply. Moreover, n.SKEP Collaborative e-business offers remote users access to all functionalities. Several reasons motivated the choice of ‘Français de Gastronomie’…

"We had very precise expectations for this project, explains Jean-Louis Müller. We needed a better management of our forecasts and supply, but also of our production plan, given that ‘Française de Gastronomie’ faces a multi-site problematic. The n.SKEP collaborative solutions from DynaSys correspond to every aspect of our needs. In addition to that is the editor’s experience on the food and beverages market and more specifically in fresh foods – a factor that caught and kept our attention. This necessitates to work at a daily bucket, and not on a weekly or monthly basis. The DynaSys experts demonstrated nothing but professionalism throughout the selection process, and quickly grasped our specific problematic. We also appreciated the power, ergonomics and easy familiarization of the n.SKEP solutions from DynaSys."

"The n.SKEP Demand Planning and n.SKEP Production Planning solutions were designed to facilitate multi-user planning, explains Ariel Weil, General Manager Assistant of DynaSys. Demand, production and supply planning can indeed be carried out simultaneously by several collaborative users located at the same or separate sites, such as for ‘ Française de Gastronomie’. The n.SKEP Collaborative e-business portal enables the different players to easily monitor their supply chain, to share their data in real-time, to alert in case of changes carried out , and to synchronize their information - all in on click, thanks to the new ‘Single Click Collaborative’ technology from DynaSys!

‘Française de Gastronomie’ seems to have been seduced by these functionalities and today we are pleased to witness our capacity to quickly and efficiently respond to the various Supply Chain problematics that our customers face – whether they are medium-sized companies known around the world, or large international groups, concludes Ariel Weil. Throughout this project, we aspire to offer ‘Française de Gastronomie’ the means to become more reactive and efficient, as our customer wish to improve its cost prices by 1% to 5% with n.SKEP. We want to accompany it on this mission."