Case Study
Automated Replenishment Reports Saved 120+ Hours Monthly
Cutting analysis time from days to minutes — boosting in-stock rates across Walmart Canada.
At P&G's dedicated Walmart Canada team, our founder automated the entire replenishment reporting workflow — replacing 3-day manual SKU-store reviews with Monday-morning-ready dashboards. The system included phantom inventory detection logic that flagged items showing as "in stock" but stuck in backrooms. Result: 120+ analyst hours saved monthly and a 1% in-stock rate improvement across the entire Walmart Canada portfolio.
Key Results
The Transformation
The Challenge
Replenishment analysts at P&G's Walmart Canada team spent the majority of each week on manual data work instead of acting on supply chain issues:
- Each analyst spent ~3 days per week manually downloading Retail Link data and building SKU-store fill rate reports in spreadsheets
- By the time issues were identified and escalated, replenishment windows had often closed — making the analysis reactive rather than preventive
- Phantom inventory — products showing as "in stock" in the system but physically stuck in backrooms — went undetected because the manual process couldn't flag the pattern at scale
- Hundreds of SKU-store combinations across the Canadian portfolio made it impossible for analysts to prioritize which locations needed attention first
Our Approach
**Automated Data Extraction:**
- Built scripts to automatically pull POS and inventory data from Walmart's Retail Link system on a scheduled cadence
- Eliminated the manual download-and-format cycle that consumed the first day of each analyst's week
**Phantom Inventory Detection:**
- Developed logic to identify phantom inventory patterns — products marked as in-stock but with declining sales velocity indicating they weren't reaching shelves
- Flagged specific SKU-store combinations where backroom-to-shelf restocking was likely failing
**Analyst-Ready Dashboards:**
- Generated personalized Monday-morning dashboards for each replenishment analyst, pre-filtered to their assigned categories and stores
- Dashboards prioritized exceptions and anomalies so analysts could act immediately instead of spending days finding problems
The Outcome
**Efficiency & Speed:**
- 120+ analyst hours saved per month by eliminating manual Retail Link downloads and spreadsheet assembly
- Analysts shifted from 3 days of report building to acting on prioritized insights within minutes of Monday morning
**Supply Chain Impact:**
- +1% in-stock rate improvement across the entire Walmart Canada portfolio — driven by earlier detection and faster response to fill rate issues
- Phantom inventory detection caught backroom-stuck products that the manual process systematically missed
- Approach became the standard replenishment reporting template for the P&G Walmart Canada team
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