Georgian bookstore chain Biblusi automates warehouse with Axelot WMS X5

2021: Warehouse Automation

On November 25, 2021, Axelot (Axelot) announced the automation of warehouses in the Biblusi bookstore chain in Georgia.

Despite the fact that the Axelot WMS X5 system was put into commercial operation completely remotely, constant contact between the project teams, preliminary plans for preparing the warehouse, testing the system on "live" operations made it possible to start the system as efficiently as possible.

The Biblusi bookstore chain has been operating in the Georgian market for more than 10 years, and more than 60 chain stores are operating throughout Georgia as of November 2021. The company determines its main priority by popularizing reading and increasing the availability of books.

To optimize and make internal logistics processes more transparent, the company's management decided to implement WMS to manage warehouse operations.

For the remote launch to be successful, the testing stage had to be brought as close as possible to the real situation in the warehouse, which was done. Warehouse employees entered real documents into the system for acceptance and shipment of goods, after which they performed the necessary operations directly at the shipping documentation. The project team monitored the correct performance of warehouse operations in the WMS system itself, as well as through the VKS, where emerging issues were discussed.

Also, before putting the system into commercial operation, the WMS administrator independently performed a number of operations on the shipping documentation in order to immerse himself in working with the system as much as possible and, in the future, quickly resolve emerging issues.

Integration AXELOT WMS X5 with ERP the -system was implemented using the message queuing service. DATAREON MQ Thus, all relevant information information about the goods after performing warehouse operations is transferred from WMS to ERP, allowing you to maintain relevance. data

As expected, automation has made it possible to get away from "paperwork." When working with the shipping documentation, up-to-date information about the location of goods is available to the performers in full. In addition, all information about goods transactions is promptly transferred to WMS, thus ensuring full control over the actions of warehouse employees.

Another disadvantage of the lack of an address warehouse was the fact that when returning products to the warehouse, it was very difficult to track the entire turnover. Using AXELOT WMS X5, tracking the movement chain has become much easier, since now the system records all goods movements in the warehouse with a reference to the time of the operation and the performer.

The same product with the same bar codes in the Biblusi warehouse can belong to different legal entities, so earlier it had to be stored in different cells in order to somehow distinguish and not accidentally ship goods from another organization. This had an extremely negative impact on the optimum use of storage space. Now WMS also takes into account in operations the legal entity to which a particular product belongs: the system clearly traces how many units of the product belong to each legal entity, and when shipped from the warehouse, WMS will not allow you to select more goods than are listed on the balances of a particular owner. Thanks to this, there is no need to store the same item in different cells in the Biblusi warehouse.

It was possible to reduce the time for selecting customer orders by building an optimal bypass route, taking into account distances and setting cell ratings. In selection planning, the system analyzes the current balances if they are located in different cells, but to ensure an order for a specific article, it is enough to approach only one of them, the system plans it for selection. The created tasks are divided into two queues: selection of storage places and selection of storage objects. When selecting storage locations, the cell rating settings that are included in the system (assembly by snake from the first rack to the final one) are initially taken into account. The distance calculation mechanism is then applied. The employee receives the task on the shipping documentation, scans the barcode of the pallet, which he picks up, then the system, depending on his location, selects the nearest cell in the area of ​ ​ finished orders. When selecting storage objects, the configured cell rating is also taken into account.

As a result, the AXELOT WMS X5 system is launched and successfully operated at the Biblusi warehouse complex. The company's management has received effective tools for managing warehouse business processes, as well as resources and capacity for further development.