Yildiz Holding

How Yildiz Holding and ORTEC took a leap of faith together

Famous for their cookies, chocolates, gum, and candies, Yildiz Holding owns some of the most recognized brands in Turkey and the world, like Godiva, McVitie’s, and Ülker. The company ships its food products across Turkey by making 400 daily trips from 15 warehouses to about 2,000 locations. With such a vast and complex landscape of production and logistics, Yildiz Holding asked for ORTEC’s support to optimize its logistics costs and to improve their service to its highest potential, by fully automating their transport planning operations.

Yildiz Holding’s challenge

To become more efficient and improve customer service every single day, Yildiz Holding continuously challenges itself to optimize its operations. In their pursuit to integrate their stock handling and routing operations surpassing territorial boundaries, Yildiz Holding was looking for a transparent, centralized system that support them in making crucial decisions that will lead to lower transportation and distribution costs, as well increased customer service quality.

ORTEC’s solution

Yildiz Holding chose to implement ORTEC Routing and Dispatch, an advanced mathematical and analytics solution to plan and optimize their logistics network. With this, Yildiz Holding received a powerful decision-making system for its planning department to create and capture real value from the data - data they already had.

“We applied the ORTEC routing solution, which was built according to the needs of our complex logistics network. This was a success story.” said Bahadir Gorgulu, Customer Services and Logistics Manager at Yıldız Holding.

The results

In retail, transport and logistics can create a lot of tension. Firstly, retailers must run a lean logistics operation at the lowest possible cost. At the same time, they need to be punctual and reliable, putting the customer first. Yildiz Holding has faced this challenge head-on: “With ORTEC’s help, we have redesigned some of our operations. This includes changing some of our customers’ route-to-market models – we have standardized our palletization and fixed pickup locations for some drop points. So far, we have achieved a 2% reduction of transportation costs and a 1% improvement in the customer service”, added Bahadir Gorgulu.

Staying agile and competitive

A streamlined store delivery process now ensures full shelves and higher customer satisfaction, while using fewer assets and driving fewer miles. Their key planners can forecast future needs and avoid expensive last-minute trucks. This enables Yildiz Holding to keep its competitive edge in an ever-evolving industry.

“Getting the minimum cost - maximum service option”

Creating more efficient plans directly results in better margins. More on-time deliveries result in better service levels and fewer penalties. Historical information on planned and actual schedules can also be used to analyze margins per customer, so they have data at hand when renewing agreements. “Even with more than 100 rules, restrictions, and other requirements that the algorithm considers, we always receive the minimum cost - maximum service option. There is no guessing, assumption, or bias”, concluded Bahadir Gorgulu.

The value of data in decision making

Yildiz Holding has eliminated repetitive work and freed up 20% of their time to handle decision-making and unexpected situations. The logistics of retail is changing rapidly, influenced by high customer expectations and omnichannel developments. By leveraging data and mathematical optimization technology with ORTEC Routing and Dispatch, Yildiz Holding is better able to make smart, future-proof decisions and increase its productivity.

Tackling the climate issues

With its roots in tradition but looking toward the future, Yildiz Holding continues to focus on the sociological and economic wellbeing of the people. The use of ORTEC optimization technology enables Yildiz Holding to create more efficient routes, reduce mileage, and respect environmental (city) zones. This, in turn, leads to less CO2 and a positive impact in the fight against climate change. To truly make a difference for both their business and the world, the company wants to extend the use of ORTEC’s software to the entire Yıldız Holding network.