Water on the shelves before the heat arrives

Khalid runs supply for a supermarket chain with forty stores across Dubai. Summer is his hardest season. When a heatwave hits, water, ice and cold drinks fly off the shelves in hours. Store managers phone in their orders too late, and the trucks are already out. Last August, nine stores ran out of water on the hottest weekend of the year. With xMap Flows, Khalid built Shelf. Every day at five in the morning, Shelf reads the forty stores, checks the forecast at each one five days ahead, keeps the stores facing forty-five degrees or more, works out the extra water, ice and cold drinks each one needs, adds them to the restock sheet, and tells every store manager in Teams. On Sunday, Shelf sees forty-seven degrees coming on Thursday for the stores inland. Twenty-two stores get extra stock on Tuesday’s trucks, two days early. That Thursday, not one water shelf goes empty. The heat still comes to Dubai. Khalid’s shelves are just ready first.

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