Morrisons has built an entirely new warehouse management system to maintain stock levels after forecaster Blue Yonder suffered a ransomware attack almost two weeks ago.
Morrisons group director for logistics, supply chain and technology Ross Eggleton said its “exceptional response” to an “unprecedented event” marked an “achievement of the year” for the industry.
After it lost control of management systems for fresh, produce and bread, creating a “total network shutdown” of its 21 warehouses in seven locations, it initially reverted to a manual contingency using picking sheets, he explained in a post on LinkedIn.
In 10 days, however working with Blue Yonder, it had created a new system with a new server that was fully operational across its network.
“The comeback is always greater than the setback,” said Eggleton. “A new warehouse management system (WMS) was live in our first site in all three chambers by day four. We build the WMS for site two by cloning and reconfiguring site one.
“Day five to 10, we repeat, converting a site per night, with no gap between implementations. Alongside this, we recount all 500 stores and all categories affected to reset stock record. We align inbound increasing demand daily and flow stock to each store.
“Was it perfect? No, but we reset the business and replaced all systems in 10 days, maintained business continuity throughout and stepped [up] on availability every day from the lowest point.
“I’m not sure many case studies exist for this type of event on this scale but maybe we just created one. We’d like to claim this record and hope nobody else has to try and beat it.
“I would like to thank all our suppliers, partners and my connections for your direct support, understanding or empathy. Christmas, we are ready for you.”
A Blue Yonder spokeswoman added: ”During the recent cybersecurity incident, Blue Yonder worked hand-in-hand with Morrisons to standup a new instance of the Blue Yonder Warehouse Management solution in Morrisons environment.
”Thanks to the strong collaboration between our two companies, we were able to support them as they restored service to their warehouse and store locations in record time.”
As revealed by The Grocer last month, Blue Yonder, which specialises in demand forecasting and replenishment, automated ordering as well as warehouse and transportation software, admitted that “ransomware has been detected” which was affecting its private cloud.
Among its other retail customers, Sainsbury’s was also impacted by the outage but restored its service with Blue Yonder last week.
In a customer update on Blue Yonder’s website, the forecaster said: “On Nov 21 2024, Blue Yonder experienced disruptions to its managed services hosted environment, which was determined to be the result of a ransomware incident.
“Blue Yonder has been working diligently together with external cybersecurity firms and hardened our defensive and forensic protocols.
“We are making good progress, several of our impacted customers have been brought back online, and we are actively working directly with others to return them to normal business operations.”
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