Interviewee’s name: Shai Lahav

Company description

The Rami Levi Group contains many companies including its well-known retail food chain, Cofix, Rami Levi Communications, Rami Levi LeAsakim (business), Rami Levi Beit HaPerot (fruit and vegetables), Israir customer club, Good Pharm, and others…

The Rami Levi chain started out in retail as a local food store in a Jerusalem market where Rami Levi sold to both retailers and wholesalers. It was joined later by the first branch, which opened on HaUman Street, followed by 3 more branches in the city and another 3 branches outside it, plus three more branches managed under franchise.

Today, the company has 56 branches and includes an online branch, Merkaz Rami Levi LeAsakim (center for business) that sells wholesale, and 2 robotic branches for picking online orders in Tel Aviv and Beer Sheva, respectively.

The company has a workforce of 7,000 to 8,000.

Tell me about a special project that you implemented with COMAX and how it contributed to your business operations

We have worked with COMAX since 2007, even before we became a public company, at a time when we had 4 branches. In effect, all of our financial activity is centered in the COMAX system, so that we grew with you, and today over 90% of the processes that were done by hand have been automated in the system. Thanks to our ongoing cooperation with COMAX, a lot of development work is happening and will happen in the future.

The COMAX system is absolutely amazing and developing all the time specifically in line with our market. Much has and is being developed to enable us to increase the percentage of operating savings all the time.

 All the development projects give us a lot, but some stand out in that COMAX carried them out specifically for us and that really changed our lives. The first is automatic digital receipt of delivery notes and making of adjustments to an order; the second is an automatic vendor adjustments process between the delivery notes and the 100 File, which is used for vendor accounting purposes.

Digital delivery notes – in the past, we would receive 100 cartons of printed delivery notes, which we would open and review one by one, making adjustments by hand to the order that had been sent to the vendor using EDI against the invoice received from the vendor. Thanks to the automatic process that we developed with COMAX, today, everything is done digitally. During goods receipt in the handheld terminal, the digital delivery note for the goods is displayed, and from there an automatic adjustment made against the order that we had sent to the vendor and was filed away in the EDI system.

With the digital delivery notes, we know in real time who is responsible for receiving the goods, the process is transparent, and we are able to prevent theft and detect errors.

Vendor adjustments – another automation capability developed complements the previous development work and makes for quick, easy and simple accounting with the vendor.

Thanks to the capability developed, each month, we conduct automatic accounting with our vendors and match the numbers of the delivery notes/ return delivery notes received during the month with the 100 Faile containing all the numbers of the delivery notes.

Another capability developed enables us to feed renewed/ modified vendor agreements directly into the adjustments system and to verify that the correct prices have been updated in it.

The contribution to the efficiency of the business and the operating savings is huge and difficult to quantify. Still, if I compare our Vendor Adjustments Department with that of other organizations of the same size, the savings are clearly evident. We have only 7 personnel in the department compared to other organizations that have 20 to 30 personnel in their vendor adjustments departments.

This developed capability frees us up to attend to what is really important, saves considerable labor, eliminates paperwork, prevents the theft of goods, and minimizes human error.

Regarding the savings that we see, in the past we employed typists exclusively to receive the delivery notes. Today they are available to work on other things.

Our 100 cartons and the tedious manual work were replaced by one handheld terminal and two computer screens.

Thanks to the vendor adjustments, we detect errors in quantities/ items, while the COMAX system is also validated when put to the legal test.

Other examples of minor capabilities that were developed, but that are of major significance:

1. Receipt from smaller vendors that don’t work with the 100 File: the system can receive an Excel file that functions like a 100 File.
2. Generation of reports alerting to missing original delivery notes needed to prevent payment of incorrect charges.
3. Billing invoice – at the closing of an adjustment with a vendor, a digital invoice is automatically generated and emailed.
4. VAT audit report in the system – checks all the invoices that are missing against the delivery notes received.
5. Recycling of plastic bottles – here we serve both as a vendor and as a customer, and the COMAX system is capable of supporting this. Based on the capability developed, we produce a customer credit and issue an automatic delivery note to the recycling companies + invoice + report containing all the numbers of the delivery notes.
6. In a project involving a logistics center that works with the various branches’ warehouses – the same process of receiving automatic delivery notes and making adjustments with the vendor has also been implemented in an intra-organizational context.

Can you state, in percentage terms, the contribution made to the efficiency of the solution or of the system?

In my estimate, operating savings of more than 30%! And that’s only from the development work that I mentioned…

Which operations do you manage in the system?

We manage the whole financial side of the company, which includes billions in turnover, procurement and inventory. In addition, the Rami Levi LeAsakim (for business) branch is a complete COMAX project; our orders website and the robotic branches interface with the COMAX system and work fully in sync with it.

What added value did you got from the COMAX system and that gave you cause to choose us?

Initially, another global ERP company undertook a characterization that lasted 3 months. But in essence, retail has its own needs and that system did not have built‑in solutions to enable us to get to work. The COMAX system specializes in the world of retail, enabling us to begin work immediately with all the accompanying solutions (handheld terminals, smart POS terminals, etc.). In addition, all along the way, the system has been dynamic and continued to develop according to the unique needs of our market. There is always an attentive ear and someone we can work with, which is very important from my perspective.

In fact, today, without question, the COMAX system ranks first among systems for the world of retail; no other system comes close to its comprehensive capabilities.