IBCS POLAND SPÓŁKA Z OGRANICZONĄ ODPOWIEDZIALNOŚCIĄ zrealizowała projekt dofinansowany z Funduszy Europejskich pn. „ibcsDock/ibcsCloud: zautomatyzowany system rejestracji przepływu towarów w magazynie”.
BEWA
BEWA Sp. z o. o. has existed since 1992. The company’s main activity is the production and sale of spring water and beverages. Most of the production is directed to the largest retail chains in Poland, such as Eurocash, Biedronka, Kaufland, Auchan and Carrefour. BEWA manufactures its products on the basis of water drawn from five wells, two of which are among the deepest in the country and reach as much as 312 m deep into the ground. Currently, the company is wholly owned by Polish capital. The dynamic development of the company forced the construction of a warehouse with an area of 11 thousand square meters. sq. m. In order to ensure its effective and reliable operation, it was decided to implement a warehouse management support system.
BEWA is one of the largest beverage producers in Poland. Every year, the company strengthens its position on the market – in 2013, it sold 308,547,685 liters of beverages, which gives a production of 2,400 pallets a day. Such high production capacity requires perfect organization of all its stages: from receiving the raw material, through its processing, to leaving the finished product from the plant. In order to control such complex processes while maintaining the highest quality standards, it is necessary to have an advanced IT infrastructure.
When the expectations towards IT platform were clearly defined, the focus was on choosing a company that would undertake their implementation. Several proposals from suppliers of mobile communication systems were considered, finally deciding on IBCS Poland.
“The purpose of implementing the system was to improve the broadly understood warehouse logistics, speed up the process of shipments, picking goods, as well as tracking goods from the moment they are taken from production. In addition, we expected that as a result of the functioning of the system, it would be possible to control processes more closely and obtain a database for business analysis of current operations.”
“The choice of the IBCS Poland solution was due to the favorable price offer, very good references and the functionality of the offered solution – ibcsTiger is not only a classic warehouse management system but – thanks to additional modules – it is a comprehensive tool that improves the company’s operations” – said Roman Siemieniuk.
Analyzing the needs and expectations of BEWA, specialists from IBCS Poland developed a solution concept. The first stage of the work was a thorough pre-implementation analysis together with a solution design. At this stage, it was decided that the most appropriate system would be a mobile system for handling finished goods warehouses with production registration based on Motorola mobile terminals, Zebra Technologies stationary and mobile label printers, and Motorola’s Spektrum 24 radio environment. The applications managing this infrastructure are ibcsTiger warehouse management system with a transport management module and an interface to the SAP Business One ERP system.
“ibcsTiger system is responsible for all warehouse processes taking place in the company. It registers goods coming out of production and releases. Warehousing activities are carried out using Motorola MC9090 mobile terminals, while production is received on stationary terminals. Operational data, issue and receipt documents are transferred through the interface from the SAP Business One ERP system. There is also a transport module in the system responsible for external transport management: registration of means of transport, management.” – said Robert Chajdaś from IBCS Poland.
The implementation of the solution took about 6 months. The seasonality of production was taken into account in the division into individual stages of work, hence the intensity of work was controlled by the implementation team from BEWA in order to minimally disrupt the production processes. In addition to basic implementation work, experts from IBCS Poland also conducted comprehensive training for system administrators and users, as well as optimization of the operation of the radio network.
“We didn’t have to wait long for the effects of the implementation. Both regular employees and the management of our plant feel specific benefits from the functioning of the system.” – said Roman Siemieniuk.
Thanks to the use of mobile equipment – terminals operating in the area of the radio network, it was possible to significantly improve the work of operators and warehousemen. The system greatly facilitated the batching and flow of goods in the plant. This saved time and eliminated errors. The equipment used, as expected, expands the capabilities of the ERP system used in the company.
The next step was to expand the system with additional modules that allow e.g. for even distribution of loads (time windows), control of delivery delays, support for production planning (information on missing assortments), control of the final loading time and handling of grace periods for products taken from production.
“The most important benefit of the installation of WMS (Warehouse Management System) is the shortening of the execution time of warehouse processes – goods releases. The specificity of production is seasonality, which in periods of increased demand requires more resources. The implementation of the system resulted in the normalization of this situation.” – said Robert Chajdaś.