Warehouse system cuts lead times, improves accuracy

Keeping consumers happy is not easy. In a world where few are willing to wait, retailers are under pressure to deliver goods faster and more efficiently than ever before. Amidst growing consumer demand, supply chains are being pushed to the absolute limit to ensure they can operate not only faster and more reliably, but also more cost effectively. Doing this without the right systems is nearly impossible, says Renko Bergh from Forte Supply Chain Consulting. The company has recently been and still is involved in the successful implementation and optimisation of ADOR4 WMS at Food Lover’s Market – and it’s seen some big results. “The company does have an existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system but the flow of goods was not optimised from the distribution centre (DC) to the various stores and back,” he says. “The client required an improved stock management and stock visibility model that would bring integration and optimisation to the warehouse, ultimately allowing for better stock prediction, management and flow.” Operating in a fiercely competitive environment, Food Lover’s Market opted to use Forte Warehouse Solutions as the thirdparty project manager for ADOR4 with regard to the implementation of the WMS as they act as the bridge between the client’s expectation and the software development house. “Also, having worked on a variety of projects, they have experience – a very particular skills and knowledge set that proved very valuable in the ultimate success of this entire project. It allowed us to focus on the business side while they made sure it was all executed properly,” says Garth Dante, project manager IT and supply chain at Food Lover’s Market. According to Bergh, several challenges were identified at the start of the project which kicked off in 2015. “First and foremost was the hardware and infrastructure that needed to be addressed. It is essential that a DC can cater for the functionality of the equipment ADOR4 functions on,” he says. “At the same time, one must not lose sight of the fact that such implementations bring about big changes for any organisation and its employees. Therefore, managing that process is integral to the success of it all. We had to make sure that everyone across the warehouse understood the plan and process and that change management took place from a user level. This all had to be done without impacting the trade environment at all – meaning there was no shutdown of one system and then an introduction of the new one. It had to be done without interruption of operations.” With ADOR4 providing the development experience, a lot of background work took place as well. Thorough user acceptance testing and dry runs were done before the first grocery DC was moved onto the WMS in July last year. “Food Lover’s Market runs a combination of departments in each DC and the requirement was that all the divisions would operate ADOR4 to cater for the specific requirements within each department. “The system had to be adjusted for such scenarios as well as the various critical requirements within each department,” explains Bergh. “Most of the success was in the adaptability of ADOR4 and how extremely relevant and workable the system is at ground level.” The benefits have been incredible. Store lead times are down by up to 50% and picking accuracy has increased by 45%. “Staff are trained, assessed and retrained as and when required,” says Bergh. These successes, says Dante, are thanks to proper preparation. “Thanks to the process knowledge and the dedicated teams, we were able to develop and test the software several times before implementation – leading to fewer bugs and a more effective process all round.” He says the advantages of the new system have resulted in increased productivity, which has positive financial results. At present two of Food Lover’s Market’s distribution centres – Cape Town and Durban – are live and operating on ADOR4 while it is currently in the process of being implemented in Johannesburg, with several other cities and possibly countries set to follow.