Heineken is the largest brewery in the Netherlands. The company is well known worldwide; internationally it is one of the top five brands. Heineken not only produces Heineken Beer but also the Amstel, Brand, Murphy's Irish Stout and Wieckse Witte brands. These beers are distributed for instance through 12,000 establishments in the catering industry.

We were asked to co-ordinate management and maintenance of the outdoor signage on all Dutch points of sale in the catering industry.

We analysed the existing situation and processes and now co-ordinate/co-ordinated the entire process: maintenance, assembly, dismantling and replacement of signage; handling of authorisations and the follow-up on damage and failure. Our IT system tracks all process information and the history of breakdowns of all points of sale. In this way we were able to provide 270 Amstel points of sale with the appropriate signage within four weeks.

Gerard Straathof, Supply Chain Manager Heineken Technical Service Organisation (TSO): "It's been a year now since we (TSO of Heineken Breweries) started working with this new set-up. This new method of operation has proved to be more than successful. The motto 'everybody should do what he's/she's good at' works really well. The three companies involved really push one another to make what's good even better. In other words, this is a typical example of a win-win situation."