The Tecsys WMS7 handles both the wide variety of pick orders and the special and individual delivery requirements of the recipients
Supply chain complexity and time are traditionally two conflicting factors, but DKI Logistics has solved this with the help of Knapp shuttles and Tecsys WMS7. DKI Logistics is one of the country's largest 3PLs and last year won a tender to supply the hospitals in the Central Jutland Region.
“We committed to deliver 9,200 pick orders daily with a short time factor. To solve the task, we had invested in a shuttle system from Knapp. The challenge was now to ensure a smooth integration between the customer and us and to get the facility to deliver on the customer’s very high requirements”, says René Møller Klausen, Operations Director at DKI Logistics. “A market search showed that Tecsys could do the job and had relevant experience, so we brought them into the project team to work on the business case.”Stephan Broni, IT and Development Manager at DKI Logistics adds:
“The requirement was a level of automation and complexity in the supply chain rarely seen in Denmark. We could see that Tecsys WMS7 could live up to this, while at the same time being flexible and able to evolve to the needs we have and might have in the future. It has been a pairing where Tecsys has developed on the fly and has shown a good understanding of the shuttle system they were interfacing to.”
René Møller Klausen, COO/Director of Operations, DKI Logistics
Handles large number of picking variables
The Knapp system is installed in DKI Logistics' one high bay warehouse in Horsens, which serves a number of 3PL customers. From the shuttle facility, 70,000 warehouse crates with a total of almost half a million item numbers are managed, orders consolidated and delivered to packing stations in a sequence controlled by the WMS.
DKI Logistics picks and packs individually down to shelf and cabinet level in each hospital department. An order typically consists of many variables: different goods, up to whole packages and at different hygiene levels. WMS7 keeps track of the many variables.
The WMS solution also ensures that the boxes are consolidated “Just in Sequence” so that they can be placed in packing cages corresponding to the truck routes out to the hospitals. All this used to be done from five warehouses with manual handling.
The plant went into full operation on September 1st, 2019 and handled the supply to hospitals in the Central Jutland Region. Since then, DKI Logistics has expanded with a number of assignments for the Region of Southern Denmark, thanks to the flexibility and security of supply they can now provide.
Picking from the Knapp system is done by picking from the top box and placing in the bottom box.
Goods receiving, where the new goods are put into the Knapp facility or driven to the parcel picking.
“In the pre-project, we spent a lot of time analysing the product flow to make the picking process as efficient as possible,” says Klaus Juhl, Tecsys Denmark’ CEO. He continues:
“WMS7 is programmed to handle it all. It makes sure the right orders come in. That the orders are divided into jobs and the automation does the work, delivering to the packing stations in the right order, applying labels, etc.”
Peter Siggaard-Andersen, WMS consultant at Tecsys adds:
“As a technical advisor, we were involved in the client’s pre-project, where we had to ensure the technical solution to the Central Jutland Region’s requirements specifications and needs and integrate with the region’s SAP system. These are a number of individual systems, with the WMS7 at the centre as the interface engine. On top of the standard WMS7 solution, we have built the desired features so that the systems interact efficiently. The same interface is used to integrate the Knapp system”, says Peter Siggaard-Andersen.
Stephan Broni, IT and Development Manager, DKI Logistics
Useful features for 3PL
The Central Jutland Region, like DKI Logistics' other customers, has access to a customer portal with its own order data and can always see the status of an order in the service delivery.
DKI Logistics has a Navision ERP system, but they chose a specialised WMS solution for the new shuttle facility.
"Our Navision is several years old and will require a version upgrade to integrate with Knapp and will therefore be more expensive to integrate for new customers. With Tecsys WMS7 we are flexible to the customer's wishes and system solution", says Stephan Broni and adds:
"As a 3PL, it is important that our WMS can integrate with the customer's solution. Tecsys WMS gives us broad opportunities to bring in new customers and integrate with the customer's ordering system. We can also develop the solution to new requirements and needs of customers and ourselves, thus ensuring high customer satisfaction. We are currently looking at expanding the pick and pack part of the WMS, including automatically printing out packing slips and adding them to the shipment. So the collaboration with Tecsys continues into the future."