In Prosveshcheniye Publishing house automation of logistics of a seasonal warehouse is complete

On August 3, 2015 the Columbus company announced reorganization of a management system for logistics in Prosveshcheniye publishing house.

Project Tasks

The management of Prosveshcheniye Publishing house planned large-scale reorganization of the main distribution warehouse - a starting point from which more than 7 thousand product names of the company go educational institutions and to commercial clients in the form of textbooks, workbooks, methodologies and other materials.

Office of the company, 2013

The quality of work of the warehouse Educations complex influences providing the Russian schools with necessary educational literature. The peak period of a delivery of products on regions falls on summer months – from May to September.

Before a high season the company understood that the working model of work of processes of logistics and a warehouse complex will be strongly overloaded. However sharp change of the IT system could complicate a situation especially as processes of warehouse and transport logistics were supported until recently by the third-party partner of the company.

The Prosveshcheniye publishing house decided to open an additional seasonal warehouse, at the same time removing a question of the raised loading during a peak season and implementing Columbus WMS management system.

Project objective - start of a seasonal warehouse in operation by the beginning of a peak season. Creating requirements to the partner of the project, the management of Education considered flexibility of basic settings of the warehouse solution to start and finish WMS under specifics of processes of the company. On all characteristics the most conforming to requirements recognized consulting company Columbus.

"The Columbus command proposed to us the solution with broad functionality adapted for conventional processes that allowed to reduce terms of start of a warehouse. The partner of the project underwent tough selection. In addition to the budget and an implementation time were estimated existence of the qualified command with relevant experience, existence of positive reviews from other Russian clients and a possibility of a visit on a warehouse of one of customers", – Denis Stasevich, the project manager, ID Education emphasized.

"Despite extensive tools, the solution Columbus WMS it is quite simple to master even to the unexperienced employee of a warehouse. If technologies of work of a warehouse with time change, it is easy to recustomize a system according to new requirements. Thus, the Prosveshcheniye Publishing house will be able constantly to increase the level of logistics service and to service more clients", – Vladimir Puchenkov, the director of practice of Warehouse Management, consulting company Columbus noted.

Project Results

The project team started the Columbus WMS system less than in a month. The seasonal warehouse was organized from scratch: in the specified time designed and automated basic processes, prepared the non-standard procedure of integration with a 1C system under the existing interchange format.

Specialists of Education and Columbus built model of processes and work of WMS so that to provide the maximum speed of a complete set of orders during a peak season. In ^{a warehouse of 8 thousand sq.m} floor storage is used, a system helps to process daily up to 550  thousand copies (25  thousand packs) of products.

"For ensuring high performance we processed conventional processes:

• acceptance,
• placement,
• shipment planning,
• complete set,
• control,
• shipment,
• inventory.

According to processes designated zones of a warehouse and a role of employees. Customizing a system, we also again defined stock keeping units, their required parameters, features of placement and processings", – Andrey Zakharov, the coordinator of the project of Prosveshcheniye Publishing house told.

At the same time employees of a warehouse studied work with a system and the data collection terminals (DCT). With the assistance of Columbus, the team of the customer developed methodical instructions for different user groups, first of all – for operators. Thanks to the training materials and the system of mentoring, employees of a seasonal warehouse mastered Columbus WMS in short terms. New employees of a complex will also be able quickly to start functional tasks.

"Consultants of Columbus showed high competence and flexible approach to implementation even in the conditions of deadlines. All tasks, including requests for completion of a system on work with the shipping documentation, were executed extremely quickly. The team of the partner helped to train personnel and provided effective technical support, worked side by side in the automated employees warehouse", – Andrey Krivosheyev, the system architect of Prosveshcheniye Publishing house told.

The basic processes considering features of floor storage and storage by stacks act on a seasonal warehouse. A number of techniques is still developed for the central warehouse. The Prosveshcheniye Publishing house will sum up the final results of warehouse automation after end of a season.

Based on implementation audit of a warehouse was booked by experts in the field of logistics and among them there are representatives of the German company Sigloch – the leading logistic company of Germany in the field of book-trade. Representatives of Sigloch highly appreciated processes and the automation system of Prosveshcheniye Publishing house - they were strongly impressed by the speed of implementation of a program component and the difficult, but steadily functioning technology processes.

"We got invaluable experience of implementation of warehouse tasks in "fighting" conditions, – Alla Mishakova, the curator of the project, the vice president of Prosveshcheniye Publishing house told. – Successful implementation of Columbus WMS in a seasonal warehouse in the burning terms only approved our determination to reorganize a management system for logistics. The next step – transfer of Columbus WMS on the main warehouse of Publishing house".