National trade alliance (Accellos WMS (Radio Beacon WMS))

"National trade alliance" - the wholesale and retail company, largest in Nizhny Novgorod, integrates more than 80 shops "Ekonom", "Ekonta" (now - Magnet), Caravan, Compass, Patch located mainly in the Volga region. The company possesses the large distribution center consisting of several warehouses with a total area about 40000 sq.m. and own vehicle fleet. "The national trade alliance" cooperates with producers and distribution companies and performs the power supply product delivery in the Volga region Federal district.

Tasks

Increase in warehouse spaces, the increased flow of orders and the range of goods did not allow to work effectively on former "paper" technology any more. Especially the warehouse with a total area of 7,000 square meters servicing retail networks as with permanent increase in number of shops also the volume of processing of loads increased was in great need in changes.

The implementation project of a warehouse management system had to increase performance raspredelitelno of the center of 7,000 square meters. The management system which is completely satisfying to needs of the distribution center of National Trade Alliance company had to allow to manage a warehouse in real time, to provide monitoring of all warehouse resources (goods, the areas, personnel) and to support all existing business processes. Increase in accuracy of accomplishment of orders, labor productivity and efficiency of personnel had to become result of system implementation.

Solution

Specialists of National Trade Alliance company compared different warehouse management systems and selected the supplier of the WMS solution within half a year. Eventually, the choice was stopped on the Radio Beacon WMS system of Pilot company.

Before starting project implementation, in test laboratory of Pilot the warehouse business model working with the real commodity reference book, orders for acceptance and shipment was created. A number of recommendations about optimization of work of the distribution center was as a result developed. Operation algorithms of personnel of a warehouse were developed and the possibility of increase in the area of a warehouse, increase in volumes of a trade flow and the processed orders on condition of preserving or reduction of the existing staff list is analyzed.

Previously held careful testing of a business process model allowed to solve successfully a problem of system implementation without stopping of work of the warehouse working in the round-the-clock mode.

Within the project points of a radio access of a wireless local area network of Symbol Spectrum 24 were set, wireless Symbol PDT 6848 radio terminals are delivered, for execution of operations of marking on warehouses of National Trade Alliance company label Zebra 105SL and Z6M printers were delivered and installed.

In the course of system implementation through joint efforts of specialists of Pilot and Alliance developed the Radio Beacon WMS interface with the ERP system. Upon the demand of the customer in addition to the functions which are built in Radio Beacon WMS specialists of Pilot developed and installed an expanded packet of the user reports. The optimized loading procedure of data from the ERP system, the optimized technology of placement (reservation) of goods for the selected orders, new control procedure and shipments of orders were developed.

Start of a system took place without stopping the current work of a warehouse that was rather difficult organizational process. Tests and adaptation of a system to working conditions of the customer were in parallel made. Start of a system was performed within 1.5 months.

Result

If to system implementation the number of selections which the warehouse was able to perform did not exceed 9000 selections a day, then after implementation of the WMS system this indicator was 14,000 and further, according to specialists of National Trade Alliance company, will only grow. It was succeeded to lay off number of the employees servicing process of collecting of orders. Also the accuracy of accomplishment of orders increased. The warehouse passed to completely "paperless" technology of work. System implementation of Radio Beacon WMS gave the chance to collect the orders requiring urgent accomplishment by one or several typesetters creating so-called "wave" for selection.

The management of the distribution center considers important achievement reduction of term of training of selectors - from one month to 3-5 days. Now need to have separate staff of special employees, aware disappeared, where what goods to look for. And if to consider that on the distribution center at the same time there are about 5000 positions, then the number of such employees should be not small. Now the managing system shows arrangement of a store cell and manages selection process.

Ensuring complete transparency of a warehouse (transactions, remaining balance, work of personnel) allowed to increase efficiency of the analytical ERP systems tools also sharply.