Mountfield speeds up stock flow by 20% with K.Motion WMS
Mountfield a.s. is the largest Czech and Slovak seller of garden equipment, garden furniture, swimming pools and other garden supplies. It currently operates a network of 74 own stores and approximately the same number of service centres and swimming pool centres.
ABOUT THE CUSTOMER'S WAREHOUSE
Mountfield supplies its stores and service centres from two central warehouse buildings in the Strančice logistics park. Spare parts, small goods and pool products are stored in the 9,200 m2 of the original main warehouse.
The new warehouse with an area of 14,600 m2 is used to store high-volume items with high turnover, such as garden equipment, stoves and furniture. The capacity is 16,800 pallet positions. The new warehouse is a modern crossdock centre with receiving ramps and a dispatch area on the opposite side. There are workstations for the picking of pallet shipments for the individual branches.
ORIGINAL STATE AND NEED FOR CHANGE
In the past, printed dispensing slips were used to support warehouse management. All item receipts and dispatch confirmations were processed manually and fed back into the corporate system. Logistics processes were supported by the Warehouse Manager module in ERP MS Dynamics NAV. "For our intention to modernise the logistics processes, the ERP system no longer offered the required options and the warehouse module was overloading the system. Our goal was to implement an external solution that would support the required functions and logistics development", says Lukáš Roučka. Working with printed documents limited further expansion. Mountfield was experiencing errors and substitutions of goods as well as problems with the execution of inventories.
IMPLEMENTED A MANAGED WAREHOUSE SOLUTION
The expansion of the product range and sales network required the expansion of the logistics facilities and the modernisation of logistics processes. In the autumn of 2013, Mountfield proceeded to implement a managed warehouse system in the existing warehouse. A new warehouse was then opened in its immediate vicinity six months later, to which the WMS was extended.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The implementation of the WMS was handled by our sister company KODYS, spol. s r.o. in less than three months. It took place in the off-peak season. The integration of the K.Motion Warehouse Edge managed warehouse system into the existing ERP system did not pose any complications for the Czech KODYS thanks to its many years of experience with the solution. The information system records approximately 30,000 warehouse items. The vast majority of them are spare parts; the number of normal business units of goods amounts to about 1,500.
K.Motion Warehouse Edge is a highly modular solution that can be easily expanded with additional functionality according to the user's needs. After a year of successful use of the system, Mountfield's management has a vision of the direction in which the solution could evolve. They are considering extending the system to stores and implementing a module for planning and management of loading.
CUSTOMER BENEFIT ASSESSMENT
The implementation of the WMS has radically accelerated the flow of goods through the warehouse. The loading process is very simple and fast in terms of working with the WMS, which was emphasized by the user in the assignment. The deployment of the system has increased the speed and accuracy of picking goods and taking inventory, and the user of the system has gained a real-time overview of the stock levels. Due to the increase in efficiency of the logistics processes, it was possible to switch to single-shift operation in the older warehouse.
"However, it is difficult to quantify the exact increase in the efficiency of the logistics processes, as the range of products was significantly expanded during the operation of the new warehouse. A year ago, the average order contained 80 items, today it is already 111 items. In just a few months, the assortment has grown by fifty items", says Lukáš Roučka, Director of Logistics at Mountfield.
Mr Roučka sees the transparency of logistics processes and easy planning as the main advantage. "We see transparency of logistics processes and easy planning as the main advantage. Just by looking at the overview of orders for a given day, we get a clear idea of the number of staff needed to secure them. The WMS allows us to allocate the optimal number of operators to execute a specific order and provides us with an effective tool to control their productivity. Another indisputable benefit is the ability to collect key operational data and analyse it."
Hardware used
- VC5090 trolley terminals
- MC9190G mobile terminals
- ZM400 printers
- wireless network consisting of RFS6000 switch and AP6532 access points