As the European leader in food transport and logistics services, STEF operates across 250 sites in eight countries, managing complex supply chains for the food industry. Organized into business units (BUs), the group relies on its network of technical experts to ensure regulatory compliance, infrastructure maintenance, and the management of all technical projects. To guarantee the traceability and efficiency of its operations, STEF conducts numerous audits, requiring rigorous monitoring of the associated action plans.
In this testimonial article, discover how STEF transformed the management of its action plans resulting from technical audits by moving from scattered monitoring by subsidiary to a centralized approach with IDhall. Laurent Vendas, Director of Technical Resources BU, and Victor Saint Guilhem, Project Manager and solution integrator, share their feedback on this development, which has optimized the management and collaboration of technical teams.
STEF’s challenge: Identifying two complementary solutions for managing audits and associated action plans
Each subsidiary regularly carries out checks, including fire safety audits, property inspections, energy assessments, and insurance audits. These audits result in action plans that must be followed and implemented to ensure compliance and continuous improvement of facilities.
Until then, these follow-ups were managed in separate tools for each site, making consolidation difficult at the BU or group level. Each site tracked its own actions, but there was no overall view at the higher level. The lack of centralization complicated collaboration. Everyone had to check their own file to track their actions, with no alerts or shared updates.
Reporting was manageable at the site or subsidiary level, but at the business unit level, it was tedious. Each subsidiary operated with its own tracking system, which was practical but limited: it was not very collaborative, was not synchronized, and relied entirely on individual initiative. If a key player did not consult the tool, they could miss out on actions that needed to be taken.
Aware of these limitations, the teams first sought a solution for managing their audits. After testing several platforms, they chose Auditool, which was perfectly suited to the task. Another key challenge remained: finding a complementary solution for managing the action plans generated by these audits.
IDhall supports Auditool in structuring and centralizing action plans resulting from audits
With Auditool having established itself as the ideal solution for managing technical audits, the next step was to complement this system with a tool dedicated to monitoring action plans.
Among the tools already in place, Jira was considered but quickly ruled out. Designed primarily for IT project management, it did not meet the business needs of the organization’s technical teams. It was therefore essential to find a more specific solution that could centralize actions and integrate effectively with Auditool.
Considering this, extensive research was conducted to identify a more suitable solution. IDhall quickly emerged as the obvious choice. Already successfully used by a subsidiary, the tool was selected and deployed in early 2024 to meet the identified needs.
One of the solution’s major advantages was its ability to easily integrate with Auditool thanks to its API. An interface was developed to enable the two solutions to work together seamlessly. Now, each audit performed in Auditool automatically generates a trigger event in IDhall, which brings together all the corrective actions to be implemented.
There is an interface developed between Auditool and IDhall, ensuring that for each audit, a triggering event is automatically created in IDhall, along with the associated initiatives. For example, if an audit identifies five recommendations, five initiatives are automatically created and tracked in IDhall.
This connection ensures complete traceability of audits through to the implementation of action plans. There is no longer any need to manually track each recommendation from audits: everything is automated, structured, and monitored in real time, ensuring greater responsiveness and reliability in the management of actions.
By structuring and centralizing follow-ups, IDhall has also improved data quality visibility. When it was first implemented, the tool revealed inconsistencies in the information generated by audits, such as duplicates, obsolete actions, and outdated statuses. The tool has thus made information more reliable and improved transparency.
When migrating data to IDhall, we noticed that actions resulting from audits could have different names depending on the site, which affected data quality. Centralization has made it possible to harmonize this information and ensure more reliable monitoring.
A simple tool to master, quickly adopted by STEF’s technical teams
To ensure a smooth transition, the implementation of IDhall was organized in several stages. A pilot project was launched on four sites: two in France, one in Spain, and one in Italy. The aim was to validate the tool in different contexts before rolling it out across the entire group.
From the very beginning, we designed this project with a European vision. Historically, tools were often managed from France, but this time it was essential to deploy a solution that would work for all business units, regardless of country.
Once the pilot was approved, the rollout was gradual, accompanied by simple, phased training. In just a few sessions, teams learned how to navigate the tool, use keyboard shortcuts, and manage their action plans.
Thanks to this approach, IDhall was quickly adopted. Today, the tool has become a central part of operational monitoring, offering unprecedented visibility and smoother management of technical initiatives.
Building on this success, the platform is generating growing interest within the group, well beyond the technical teams. Its effectiveness in monitoring action plans has revealed potential for wider use, paving the way for its deployment in other strategic functions, such as HR and quality teams, which could also benefit from centralized and collaborative management of their initiatives. Ultimately, the goal is to enable the various teams to centralize all action plans on a single platform, thereby ensuring better coordination and cross-functional visibility of the group’s initiatives.
IDhall is intuitive. Our teams quickly mastered its use in their daily work. Feedback from technical managers has been extremely positive, and the presentation to the BU executive committee convinced even the most demanding users. The immediate enthusiasm for the tool and the desire to roll it out on a larger scale confirmed that we had made the right choice.
