Case Study: Leading Specialty Retailer boosts sales and cuts inventory with Mu Sigma

Leading Specialty Retailer - Customer Case Study

Leading Specialty Retailer, one of the world’s largest home improvement and construction retailers, was struggling with inefficient replenishment and poor demand planning across millions of store-SKUs. Its legacy inventory planning systems could not accurately account for slow-moving items, seasonality, weekday/weekend demand shifts, supplier variability, or differing customer behaviors, leading to lost sales and excess inventory.

Mu Sigma implemented a custom, simulation-based inventory optimization solution using agent-based business simulation, discrete event simulation, and an order simulator to set safety stock and re-order policies. Integrated into the retailer’s existing systems, Mu Sigma’s approach was used daily across more than 30 million item-store combinations, driving a 3% sales increase, freeing nearly $40 million in inventory, and cutting manual override effort by 50%.