If you were the new CEO of the second largest supermarket chain, how could you use supply chain integration to be more efficient and profitable?

Abstract: It didn't take long for Lawrence R. Johnston, then the chief executive of GE Appliances, to realize that Albertsons, the nation's second-largest grocery chain, was the opportunity he had been waiting for. The folksy, family-owned grocery chain that Joe Albertson started in Boise, Idaho, in 1939 had become a $35 billion dysfunctional mess. The company had botched the integration of its 1999 merger with American Stores Co. Johnston came to Albertsons in April, 2001, with an idea or 2 about how to tackle the company's problems. First, was to make it operate more efficiently. Johnston is cutting about $1 billion in costs while spending another billion to upgrade technology - from the supply and distribution system to self-checkout stands. He closed 500 unprofitable stores. And he has introduced a new managerial and financial discipline, including Six Sigma, to the 230,000 employees.