Huntsman-NMG (WMS)

EXPERIENCE OF SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION OF MANAGEMENT OF THE WAREHOUSE ON CHEMICAL PRODUCTION.

Huntsman-NMG Ltd (www.huntsman-nmg.com) specializes in the development area, productions and distributions of polymeric compositions and materials, ready to application, for protection of surfaces, isolation, consolidation and pasting, the device of coverings with special properties, productions of elastomers. For many years the company is one of recognized technology leaders in the field of production of materials of construction chemistry, protecting covers, industrial glues, materials for the shoe industry, the elastomeric systems. Huntsman-NMG locates a branch network in Moscow, Togliatti, Rostov-on-Don, Novosibirsk and Chelyabinsk. Affiliated enterprises of the company work at Ukraine (Kiev) and in Belarus (Minsk).

The total area of a warehouse complex of Huntsman-NMG company, is about 5000 sq.m. Raw-material storages, a container, finished goods, the equipment, highly inflammable materials and components are a part of a complex. A part of products is stored on the open areas. In warehouses all types of storage are used: rack, floor, cell-like, cassette, etc. The active nomenclature makes about 500 positions of raw materials and about 500 positions of finished goods (liquid, firm and loose).

The curator of the project, the head of the warehouse of Huntsman-NMG Alexey Lavrenkov tells about experience of system implementation of management of a warehouse.

IMPLEMENTATION PREMISES

Some time we used the warehouse module of our corporate system "1C Enterprise 8.1", finished under specifics of our processes, and it quite suited us. However with growth of the enterprise and increase in warehouse spaces it became clear that technological limits on the existing accounting system did not allow to solve effectively the problems connected with management and control of transactions in warehouses.

Long search and losses of goods, lack of accurate information on the volume of empty seats of storage were the serious problems which are slowing down production and sales of products. For example, collecting of Inventories according to the request for movement from a warehouse to workshop was executed as follows, after obtaining the request the employee of workshop came to the warehouse supervisor and asked where the necessary products are stored. Zavsklad went along racks and showed where and what lies. The staff of workshops preferred to come around on a warehouse and to take necessary products. Such organization of process led to the fact that a raw materials remaining balance in a warehouse was controlled not especially tightly. Just the same situation was also in work with clients. Pickers in search of the ordered goods ran on all warehouse, swearing with each other and the manager. Periodically to the client it was shipped products of the necessary name, but other series (batch) that led to returns and claims.

The existing technology of work on assembly sheets did not provide the due accuracy of information on products remaining balance in a warehouse, the accounting remaining balance on warehouses not always matched real quantity of Inventories. The company management made the decision that the order in storage of materials and the made products and also installation of a strict inventory control due to implementation of a specialized system is necessary.

Due to these circumstances before us there was a question of the choice of a warehouse management system which implementation was capable to solve the following key problems:

• Traceability of transactions and relevance of information on stock balance;
• Fall forward and ensuring faultlessness of assembly of orders, lot-based/serial accounting;
• Reduction of time for manual entry of data and editing accompanying documentation;
• Decrease in time expenditure on control and recalculation of orders at shipment.

CHOICE OF THE PARTNER

Initially the choice was not limited only to the Russian warehouse management systems, but foreign solutions quickly were eliminated because of significantly the overstated cost at the identical functionality necessary for the solution of our tasks. On the basis of offers from several domestic integrators, the multistage tender was held. The main selection term of a system, in addition to the solution of key tasks of the company, was a number of indicators: existence of required functionality and the fulfilled technology of implementation, experience of the supplier in solving of tasks of production companies.

According to the results of the tender the Moscow company "IT Scan" with the warehouse management system "Expert Logistic" as the most completely conforming to all these requirements was selected.

Implementation

Any serious problems with project implementation of implementation of WMS were not. Implementation of WMS took place smoothly thanks to harmonious work, both specialists IT Scan, and our collective. Both we, and they, were interested in quick and accurate start of a system.

It was initially designed technologies of work of a warehouse in a system circuit, then programmers IT Scan perform works on integration of Expert Logistic with our corporate system "1C Enterprise 8.1" that was rather difficult stage since it was necessary to execute synchronization on all document flow of the enterprise: intake of raw materials on a warehouse, internal interwarehouse transfers, acceptance and shipment of raw materials and products, a complete set and disassembling, goods receipt in branch, etc. As a result, between systems bilateral exchange of reference books and documents in real time is implemented.

At system implementation of management of a warehouse, we selected the strategy of the maximum training of personnel of a warehouse complex before start in a pilot eksplutation. Within three weeks (the standard term of training before start of 10-12 days) consultants step by step trained employees, - at first managers, then administrators and then directly warehouse personnel working with the shipping documentation, showed to each employee and explained how a system works, sorted in detail all difficult questions and then held testing.

It should be noted that implementation of WMS, was apprehended by the main part of personnel of a warehouse extremely positively, however a part of employees had to be replaced. We employed new people who were motivated to move forward together with the company. Having a little worked before implementation "in the old manner", employees saw that there is no accurate scheme of storage and accounting of goods, in a warehouse chaos reigns and urgent measures on establishing order are required. All 100% of employees quickly understood logic of a system and at once were involved in work on deployment of WMS.

We introduced the new system of motivation with the accurate scheme of awarding and a depremirovaniye of employees focused on the accuracy of accomplishment of warehouse transactions.

Now the Expert Logistic system manages as material flows between objects of warehouse economy (raw-material storages, a container, finished goods, the equipment, highly inflammable materials and components) and production, and logistic processes in each warehouse. The personnel of a warehouse are equipped with radio-frequency terminals of Motorola.

THE FIRST RESULTS

The lack of shortages became the first and most noticeable result of work on data of several inventories. Due to transparency of stock remainders and to the increased control of the raw materials moved to production releases of defective products considerably decreased that is very important for chemical production. For example, even one excess gram of the defoamer on ton of products is defects.

Storage of Inventories is organized taking into account temperature condition (temperature characteristics of products are reflected in WMS) and a system controls compliance of the placed goods to the storage area. Optimization of storage locations (consolidation of cells) was huge plus of implementation of WMS. This transaction designed to reduce number of the used cells, to release cells for the planned and theoretical receipts and in addition to reduce time spent by pickers for a complete set of orders.

Also claims from buyers are minimized. Earlier over us the danger to transfer illiquid raw materials or different series of goods to production constantly hung, now it is excluded. If earlier the picker could issue goods of other series, hoping that this fact will not be noticed, then now control of transaction from WMS does not allow to make a mistake. Significant increase in speed of a complete set, bigger order amount became the following powerful result of the project we process for smaller time.

Thanks to these WMS we managed to take additional steps for improvement of storage system. These systems visually showed us that a significant amount of the nomenclature at us is kept on the street and the decision to create special bunkers for capacity storage that is important for providing optimal temperature condition of storage of raw materials is at the moment made. Production plans orders for the week ahead since has the complete information according to the diagram and volume of the expected deliveries. Works involving all hands are excluded that increases efficiency of a warehouse.

Summing up the results, one may say, that only positive sides of system implementation of management of a warehouse are still noticeable. We received the convenient tool on effective management and job analysis of our warehouse complex and warehouse personnel.

Automation filial warehouse Novosibirsk (~ 1000 sq.m). WMS-cistema's server is located on the main object (Obninsk), 4 radio-frequency data collection terminals of Motorolla.