A typical scene at a Metro Cash & Carry store: several trucks are delivering dozens of pallets and cartons. Ensuring the smooth supply of goods is a great challenge for METRO Group considering that the product range of a Cash & Carry store covers up to 20,000 food items and 30,000 non-food products. In order to be able to procure these vast amounts of merchandize the retail group depends on reliable suppliers. Efficient delivery relies on a great number of factors:

METRO Group will be answering these questions systematically in the future with a special controlling tool: the Metro Supplier Scorecard.

The Metro Supplier Scorecard is an assessment model which lets METRO Group check the performance levels of its suppliers based on standard key figures called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs include points such as punctuality, product availability and speed as well as identifying if consignments are complete. The Metro Supplier Scorecard is not being deployed to check-up on suppliers, but rather to act as a tool to promote cooperation between METRO Group and manufacturers in a spirit of partnership. The performance assessment is to support jointly identifying improvement potentials and optimizing the supply chain. The overriding objective is to streamline the supply chain from production to the sales floor and make it as efficient as possible. The Metro Supplier Scorecard also contributes to increasing goods availability which also benefits suppliers as they can rely on their goods being on the shelf when desired.

In the future METRO Group’s buyers and Supply Chain Managers are going to be using the Metro Supplier Scorecard. METRO Group’s suppliers are to use the Metro Data Warehouse information system in the future to get access to the Metro Supplier Scorecard so they can view their performance scores in a report. Only one type of Metro Supplier Scorecard is going to be deployed: the Metro Supplier Scorecard.

METRO Group started developing key figures for the Metro Supplier Scorecard as early as 2001. Initially a number of pilot projects with manual Metro Supplier Scorecards were initiated in the Metro Cash & Carry sales division, which analyzed a selected number of key figures. After extensive testing and a restructuring measure, the first generation Metro Supplier Scorecard is to be rolled out in the sales brands Metro Cash & Carry, Real and Schaper in selected pilot countries. The objective is to continually enhance supplier assessment and add further KPIs. In the long-run METRO Group intend to use standard KPIs throughout the group.

The METRO Group Metro Supplier Scorecard is comparable to the Global Scorecard, which was developed by the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI). The latter includes check-lists and KPIs to measure companies’ abilities in Efficient Consumer Response (ECR). The Metro Supplier Scorecard is mainly based on KPIs referring to the supply chain. These key figures are comparable to GCI standards defined for the Global Scorecard.