Jaap Eikelboom
Combines deep knowledge of warehouse operations with equally deep knowledge of the IT beneath them — the logistics control concept as the foundation for selection, interfaces, go-live strategy and ramp-up.
Jaap is an industrial engineer (Eindhoven University of Technology) and has worked in logistics consulting for more than twenty years, including at Districon. Within Supply Today, he is the orchestrator on programmes where technology, systems and organisation are overhauled at the same time. He guides the set-up, conversion and sometimes closure of distribution centres for retailers, wholesalers and service providers — work you only get when a board dares to hand you the keys. He combines deep knowledge of warehouse operations with equally deep knowledge of the IT beneath them. That is exactly the combination on which transformations founder: the logistics design is right, but nobody oversees how ERP, WMS, WCS and the mechanisation must become one working whole. His work therefore starts not with a system but with the operational process and the logistics control concept; from that foundation he leads the selection, the interfaces, the go-live strategy and the ramp-up.
Slotting is his own invention. Where most warehouses place their items wherever they once happened to end up, Jaap developed the methodology to calculate that placement — which item belongs in the golden zone, which on the long route, and what that saves per order in walking distance and lifting. He rolled it out at an international food retailer in four Central and Eastern European countries, with higher pick productivity from day one. He also built the working prototype, which runs on a client’s own data before any investment is made. That model is the core of the Operational optimisation & algorithms pillar.
At a European textile retail chain with 1,300 stores, he transformed the conventional central distribution centre into a highly automated one — shuttle system, depalletisers, AMRs, advanced order picking and stacking. As project manager he was responsible for the entire IT landscape and integration, including the redesign of transport and assortment planning — within the programme led by Ardy Thoonsen.
At the fresh food processor that slumped after go-live, his assignment was to get to the bottom of the IT landscape and demonstrate that the IT and planning systems were sound — because that turned out to be the crux: the problem was not the technology, but confidence in it. With that evidence on the table, the operation could be stabilised.
He works on the basis of trust, transparency and ownership, looks for simplicity and communicates clearly. He is at his best in complex, fundamental change: he keeps the overview where others get lost, and works through analysis towards something the operation can really handle.
