December 05, 2005 08:30 ET

Hannaford Brothers Co. Drives Supply Chain Excellence With IBM System z9 Mainframe Running Linux

Grocery Retailer's Ultra-Sophisticated Datacenter Improves Workload Performance by 50 Percent and Wirelessly Transmits Data to 300 Stores From Maine to Florida

ARMONK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- December 5, 2005 -- IBM today announced that Hannaford Brothers Company tapped the new IBM System z9 mainframe as the hub of its on-demand supply chain for more than 300 retail stores and five major distribution centers in the United States.

The 120-year old, multi-regional food retailer turned to IBM technology to help increase customer satisfaction, reduce costs of goods and improve the quality of service in its competitive market, marked by the emergence of huge superstores and declining margins.

Used to power 80% of Hannaford's overall business, the IBM System z9 helps enable Hannaford employees to access real-time data with handheld devices to enable better management of warehouse inventories, support buying forecasts and process stock orders direct from associates in the aisles.

"An elegant 30-minute data transfer from the z990 mainframe to the new System z9 mainframe on a Sunday evening capped a multi-year IT transformation at Hannaford," said Bill Homa, senior vice president and CIO of Hannaford. "With that simple move, we improved workload performance by 50 percent."

The heavy lifting began several years earlier when Hannaford began consolidating the workloads of hundreds of servers -- four or five servers in each store -- onto one IBM z990 mainframe. Now all Hannaford's partner and supplier data, inventory controls, and payment and order processing run simultaneously on 23 separate and secure partitions on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 and z/OS on the single System z9.

"The only way we'd consider consolidating critical data from hundreds of servers onto one system was by choosing an IBM mainframe for its legendary reliability and availability," said Homa. "By consolidating systems, thousands of employees -- including our warehouse specialists who listen to real-time picking and receiving instructions and sales associates who order product for the shelves using wireless handheld devices -- now have access to the same, up-to-date data, giving us a competitive advantage."

At Hannaford, the new System z9 runs applications such as:

--  a vendor portal powered by IBM WebSphere on Linux, allowing partners
    direct access to make order entries, schedule docks for deliveries and
    check on the status of payments and orders.
--  SAF's Computer Assisted Ordering, utilizing centralized data collected
    from the stores to the mainframe, which is then served to a new application
    that analyzes the data and generates stock replenishment orders. It also
    helps to increase sales by having the right products at the right store at
    the right time, displayed in the right spot, while it reduces excess
    inventory on hand that is not anticipated for sales.
    

"Hannaford's move to an on demand infrastructure is a textbook example of efficiencies that can be gained from consolidating, integrating and opening its IT," said Erich Clementi, general manager IBM System z. "They are using a sophisticated computing system with virtualization and collaboration capabilities designed to be able to grow with them as they continue to expand their business."

The IBM mainframe is also at the heart of Hannaford's disaster recovery strategy. The primary data center running the System z9 is linked to another data center running "lights-out," with an IBM z990 server. Data from the System z9 is designed to be synchronously replicated with the remote centers and stored on an IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server and IBM TotalStorage tape. Hannaford also runs IBM p5 systems for its ERP system. Hannaford worked with IBM reseller Cornerstone Systems.

IBM began shipping the System z9 on September 16, 2005. It is designed to be an open, reliable and security-rich computing system for business. The new system represents a three-year, $1.2-billion development effort encompassing 5,000 IBM engineers, software developers and security experts from around the world.

About Hannaford Brothers Company

Hannaford Bros. Co., based in Scarborough, Maine, operates 200 supermarkets and food and drug combination stores in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Massachusetts. These stores operate under the Hannaford Supermarket, Hannaford Supermarket and Pharmacy, and Victory Super Market names. Hannaford's IT system also runs the supply chain of two Florida-based chains, Kash n' Karry and Sweetbay Supermarkets. Hannaford employs more than 24,000 associates. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Delhaize America, Inc. which in turn is owned by Delhaize Group of Brussels, Belgium.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of on demand business. For more information about IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com.

The following are either trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States or other countries or both: IBM, the IBM e-business logo, zSeries and WebSphere, pSeries, TotalStorage, System z9. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

All others are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.