Bake Five is the service centre for 15 industrial bakeries in the Netherlands. A brief explanation: Bake Five organises marketing, purchasing, logistics, product management, billing and automation for these bakeries from one central location. About 1300 locations get their bread and pastry from Bake Five. It isn’t surprising then that the message flow is complex and has increased significantly in recent years. Descartes Systems Group’s cloud-based Gateway concept ensures it now flows without too much trouble.
Message flow without hitches
John Korse, Manager ICT at Bake Five, stresses the importance of a smoothly running message flow. It is critical for business management and the relationship with Bake Five’s customers. For these reasons Bake Five decided to start using the Gateway concept of Descartes. Korse adds: “The cooperation with Descartes has intensified over the years, because Descartes quickly and proactively reacted to our questions and situation. That is exactly what we need for our services to our clients.”
This is how the Gateway concept works
The Gateway concept includes the complete outsourcing of electronic communications. Both transport and the translation of all EDI messages are controlled from a central location. The environment is cloud-based and 24×7 proactively managed. Bake Five is at the heart of all communications (orders, delivery notes and invoices) between different retailers and bakeries. Messages are not only forwarded 1-on-1 to a bakery, but messages are also interchanged between different bakeries. This enable the bakeries to optimally utilize their production. For retailers, this means a guarantee of fresh bread on the shelves.
Cláudia Wada on