Elvetino modernises warehouse logistics with an integrated system landscape

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A future-ready platform for warehouse management, procurement, and efficient operations

Elvetino AG, the catering company of Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), supplies SBB dining cars across Switzerland with food and beverages every day. Efficient logistics and seamless IT support are essential to ensure product availability, service quality, and operational excellence.

To modernise its existing system landscape and meet future requirements for transparency, scalability, and digitalisation, Elvetino decided to implement a new warehouse management solution.

The existing warehouse management system was increasingly unable to meet business requirements. Inefficient process support and limited transparency across goods movements made business management more challenging. At the same time, the system showed shortcomings in meeting SBB requirements for data protection, cybersecurity, business continuity, and future development capabilities.

Wavestone supported Elvetino as the overall project lead, coordinating collaboration between business departments and multiple implementation partners. This enabled the successful delivery of a complex transformation across four logistics centres and around 100 rolling warehouses, without any significant interruption to operations.

The challenge: Transforming a complex logistics environment without disrupting operations

Elvetino supplies SBB trains throughout Switzerland with food and beverages every day. Its logistics network consists of four central logistics centres in Zurich, Geneva, Basel, and Bellinzona, as well as approximately 100 trains serving as rolling warehouses. This creates high demands for availability, transparency, and efficiency across logistics processes.

As part of the Venturo project, the existing warehouse management system, which had reached the limits of its capabilities, was to be replaced by a modern, state-of-the-art solution. At the same time, the existing ERP landscape needed to be further developed.

Procurement and ordering processes, previously managed within the warehouse management system, were migrated to the ERP platform. This created a modern and sustainable system architecture. In addition, integrations with the point-of-sale system had to be rebuilt, and business processes harmonised across all systems.

The key challenge was clear: delivering a comprehensive transformation while ensuring that day-to-day business operations continued without significant disruption.

“The introduction of Venturo was a complex transformation for Elvetino, involving many stakeholders and interdependencies. Wavestone helped us bring together different perspectives, systematically address critical issues, and successfully execute the go-live.”

Martin Berner, Head of Supply Chain Management and Member of the Executive Management Board

Wavestone as an enabler of transformation

Wavestone assumed overall project leadership and ensured that Elvetino, its business teams, and the various implementation partners worked together under a shared delivery approach.
Wavestone’s added value lay in combining project management, business analysis, and operational execution. Acting as the central interface between business teams, IT, and implementation partners, Wavestone translated business requirements into actionable solutions and ensured that interdependencies between processes and systems were identified and addressed at an early stage.

This provided Elvetino with a central coordination and integration function that helped align different stakeholder perspectives and interests, ultimately guiding the organisation safely through a highly complex transformation to a successful go-live.

Wavestone’s support included:

Overall project governance and vendor management
Implementation of the new warehouse management system
Enhancement of the ERP system with procurement and purchasing capabilities
Coordination of system integrations across implementation partners
Planning and management of end-to-end testing
Definition and monitoring of go-live readiness
Organisation of inventory counting and data migration
Go-live execution and hypercare support

Through rigorous risk management, close collaboration among all project partners, and structured go-live planning, critical challenges were identified early, addressed proactively, and successfully resolved.

The result: Integrated processes and greater transparency

Following the completion of this strategically important initiative, Elvetino now operates a modern, integrated platform for warehouse management and procurement.
The new system landscape connects purchasing, warehouse operations, and goods flows across all locations, creating significantly greater transparency over inventory levels and material movements.

One of the most remarkable achievements was the go-live itself. At midday, the legacy warehouse management system was taken offline. Inventory counts across the four logistics centres were completed by 6 p.m., and the new integrated platform went live later that same evening.

This enabled operational processes to continue without any prolonged interruption, a critical success factor for an organisation responsible for supplying numerous SBB trains on a daily basis.

By introducing an integrated system landscape, Elvetino has reduced manual handovers, improved data quality, and established a strong foundation for future digitalisation and automation initiatives.

Sustainable value for Elvetino

The introduction of Venturo delivers lasting value to Elvetino through:

Digitalisation of warehouse and procurement processes
Integration of warehouse management, purchasing, and ERP within a single end-to-end system landscape
Greater transparency across inventory and material flows
Improved data quality and reduced manual interfaces
A scalable platform for future process optimisation
A successful go-live across four warehouse locations and approximately 100 rolling warehouses within a single afternoon

The project demonstrates how professional project management, close collaboration, and thorough go-live preparation can ensure the successful delivery of complex transformations involving multiple systems, vendors, and locations.

Today, Elvetino’s modernised system landscape not only provides the foundation for more efficient warehouse and procurement processes but also enables the continued digitalisation and automation of its logistics operations.