“WMS-7 has increased data quality in the warehouse, so we are now very close to zero errors, both in terms of deliveries to customers, but also the inventory audit, without doing traditional inventory counting for year-end.” says Sicco Roorda, Head of Supply Chain.
Sika Footwear is a 148 year old Danish company that is both a manufacturer and importer of safety shoes and work footwear.
In spring 2017, Sika Footwear decided to introduce a Warehouse Management System to optimise processes at the central warehouse in Herning and at the factory in Ukraine. After the start-up of Tecsys WMS-7, Sika Footwear experiences a significant improvement in processes and transparency from raw materials to finished goods, as well as goods in transit.
Faster goods receipt
Warehouse optimisation can be a balancing act that requires close daily attention and can be a challenge both in terms of picking, dispatching, delivering faster, and creating good profitability. It doesn’t get any easier when you have multiple warehouses in different countries.
“Warehousing took a while before we had WMS-7 because we often receive multiple purchase orders from the same supplier that are mixed together at case and pallet level. We used a classical goods reception where the goods had to be received one purchase order at a time and this was very time consuming as everything had to be sorted before it could be received”. Says Conni Schrøder, warehouse manager at Sika Footwear.
“After the implementation of WMS-7, it is now possible for us to select a number of purchase orders and let WMS automatically allocate the goods to the selected orders, which saves a lot of time and reduces our stock-holding as the goods get to the sales faster. In addition, WMS-7 also ensures quality, as WMS knows barcodes on both individual products and boxes. During receiving, picking and packing, barcodes can be scanned at both product and checkout level. If you scan a box with 12 pieces, WMS knows that the number corresponds to 12 pieces. It has optimised our goods reception!”
Storage and FIFO control
For food, everyone knows that best-before dates and FIFO are essential, but even in safety footwear, proper sequencing and FIFO management is important so that the oldest items are always sold first. During storage and replenishment, a relaxed FIFO method is used, which means goods received within 3 months are equally good. This gives better opportunities to optimise the flow and still comply with FIFO.
René Møller Klausen, COO/Director of Operations, DKI Logistics
Fewer errors and quick to find goods
“Warehouse optimisation has been significantly improved with WMS-7” says Conni Schrøder and continues “our workflows have been automated, avoiding manual workflows and ensuring a better overview. Today we are able to do our work faster and more efficiently.”
All transactions are made with barcode scanners and updated on-line, so that stock is always up-to-date. Data is automatically exchanged with Microsoft Dynamics AX and sales and customer service can follow the stock minute by minute.
Improved efficiency
WMS-7 automatically decides picking methods based on order volume. Large orders are picked on pallets one order at a time. For smaller orders, up to 10 orders can be multiplied simultaneously and the smallest orders with only 1 product line are batch picked. This means optimal picking and packing, saving up to 30% on transport every day.
“Our ambition was to improve our processes. WMS-7 has really optimised our process, making us more efficient and able to handle more orders faster and easier. We have experienced a 10% growth in 2017, but because of WMS-7 we have not hired additional resources. We expect to grow another 20% before we have to hire again.” says Sicco Roorda.