"Harris of the CIS" implemented production planning tools

January 30, 2015. The Harris of the CIS company (the Russian division of Barilla Group) within long-term cooperation with consulting company Columbus integrates the operating warehouse management system Columbus WMS with mobile terminals of data collection.

Project Tasks

The project on implementation of mobile terminals of data collection is caused by expansion of a product line of Harris of the CIS. As a result, the enterprise had a need for process optimization of a complete set of orders and cost reduction on compensation of warehouse personnel. In addition terminals are logical addition of the warehouse management system based on Microsoft Dynamics AX started by Harris of the CIS together with Columbus several years before.

Until recently employees of a warehouse worked only with paper documents. The technology was supported by the operating system and quite arranged the company. This year at the Moscow region plant "Harris of the CIS" new lines of production of pasta open. Increase in production volumes will affect both speed, and quality of work of personnel of a warehouse complex. Especially taking into account that to a third of working time employees spend only on movements, namely — on receiving tasks and their registration in a system upon end, noted in the company.

The Columbus command proposed Harris of the CIS the rational solution of the above-stated problems. Automatic identification of products of the company due to use of mobile terminals will reduce runtime of conventional warehouse processes. In particular, using data collection terminals the company already performs transactions of acceptance arrived from production and from external suppliers of goods, placement on storage, replenishments, inventories of warehouse stocks.

Along with performance improvement of work of warehouse personnel, input of mobile terminals will help warehouse economy of Harris of the CIS to reduce quantity of the errors in processing of goods connected with a human factor are sure of Columbus. Now each employee of a warehouse armed with the shipping documentation authentically knows where and in what quantity to process required goods at present of time. Thanks to a mobile equipment the personnel allow 10 times less errors in the work. And it means that the trade production company will be able to optimize service of the clients. Also in a system the information about what busy employees of a warehouse complex quickly is reflected. In Columbus WMS based on Microsoft Dynamics AX it is possible to trace what actions and with what goods they execute.

The project allowed to simplify work of warehouse personnel, especially during the periods of peak loading and to bring logistics of trade production company to qualitatively new level.

"Several times a day we accept finished goods from own plant and from our foreign partners. Earlier in each such case the personnel manually entered data on the arrived goods in a system. Now we spend a minimum of time and efforts to registration of products: when scanning barcodes all names and quantity of the accepted goods almost instantly appear in the accounting system, sales managers can make out on them orders at once" — the head of IT department of Harris of the CIS Yaroslav Prikhodko told.

"The Harris of the CIS company implements the wide range of food products most of which part requires observance of certain storage conditions and processing. Manual control by processes of merchandising in warehouse economy is quite labor-consuming and economically unprofitable for the company. Using data collection terminals in addition to the operating information system Columbus WMS, Harris of the CIS will be able to increase performance of personnel and to increase the accuracy of accomplishment of routine transactions with goods" — Vladimir Puchenkov, the director of practice of Columbus Warehouse Management added in return.

Representatives of the company integrator reported TAdviser.

Project Development

On July 1, 2016 the Columbus Russia company announced process automation of planning in Harris SNG LLC on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform.

Project Tasks

For increase in business performance the customer needed to automate purchase planning of raw materials and production according to demand, proceeding from the sales forecast and customer orders. Earlier planning in the company was conducted by means of spreadsheets. This method of work had as the technical shortcomings connected with difficulties at joint work with the uniform file of spreadsheets and essential business shortcomings: there was no opportunity to automate approval of summary planning of other key spheres of activity of the company, up-to-date data about purchases, production and sales were reflected in spreadsheets manually.

Production "Harris of the CIS", (2013)

One of premises of implementation of the module of summary planning of Microsoft Dynamics AX in Harris SNG LLC - expansion of the range of products which are turned out in Russia and manual control by growth of the nomenclature considerably would raise business risks.

The company management set the task of implementation of reliable schedule system for production planning.

Project Progress

The implementation project of the solution took half a year. Before starting solution development, specialists of Columbus company held a seminar for the staff of purchasing department, sales department and department of planning of Harris SNG LLC company. The seminar purpose - the presentation of approach to summary planning, acquaintance of staff of customer company to Microsoft Dynamics AX and collection of information for implementation.

We developed the report of Microsoft Dynamics AX which is precisely repeating for specialists of Harris SNG LLC company usual to them a spreadsheet form. For the rest this new, modern solution based on the module of summary planning Microsoft Dynamics AX. The module obtains primary data from a system, automatically plans purchases and production, and presents these data in the form of the report, usual for users. Sergey Ignatkin, manager of projects of Columbus company

In the solution on the basis of the module of summary planning Microsoft Dynamics AX implemented in Harris SNG LLC company four circuits of planning are implemented:

• supply planning for the medium term in 12-18 months and short-term planning with the horizon from 1 week to 4 months.
• the planning of finished product output implemented according to the principles of MRP II i.e. taking into account restrictions of production capacities, with the horizon in four months; and the plan of production release painted on days with the horizon in one week.
• circuit of distribution planning of stocks of finished goods.
• circuit of purchase planning of import products from Italy.

Project Results

Results:

• decrease in labor costs on planning,
• quality improvement of planning at the expense of an exception of manual planning in spreadsheets,
• preserving of level of service due to use of up-to-date data about stocks and the expected arrivals,
• increase in discipline of work of staff of the company with IT solution,
• possibility of control of terms and purchasing amounts and production.

Thanks to the solution for summary planning based on Microsoft Dynamics AX implemented by Columbus company we increased business performance due to sales management, production planning and optimization of level of trade inventories. Yaroslav Prikhodko, head of IT service Harris SNG LLC