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GKN DRIVELINE SERVICE PIONEERING INDUSTRIE 4.0 WITH CLICK REPLY™

18.09.2019

At their German headquarters, GKN Driveline Service has been driving the digital transformation already since 1999, when they introduced the innovative Click Reply™ Warehouse Management solution. The system - with some adaptations - still is the backbone of warehouse operations in an era of Industrie 4.0.

GKN Driveline Serviceis the world’s leading supplier of original GKN Driveline components and driveline systems, satisfying demand for replacement parts in the independent and franchised aftermarket.

GKN Driveline Service offers the most comprehensive portfolio of vehicle driveline products via wholesalers and local parts retailers. Those products include CV shafts, joint kits, boot kits and propshafts.

Already in 1999, GKN Service GmbH, that later was to become GKN Driveline Service GmbH, set the signals for digital transformation at their German headquarters in Rösrath when they introduced the innovativeClick Reply™ WMSsolution.

Stefan Eschbach, responsible for SAP Integration at GKN, remembers: »At that time we worked entirely on an ERP system. Some of the things we wanted to achieve could not easily be managed with its standard solution. We wanted, e.g., to integrate our forklift fleet with the ERP system, in which we had all information about our inventory. Logistics Reply helped us by implementing our own Transportation Guidance System, based on Click Reply™. This system was not only capable to communicate with our ERP, but it provided an easy to use interface that felt like touchscreen today. This user friendliness tremendously facilitated the adoption of the system with our colleagues.«

That was in 1999. Since then the IT world has changed a lot, but the Transportation Guidance System still reliably does its job. Logistics Reply has been supporting GKN by maintaining the solution and by updating the functionality. Today the system can navigate the semi-automatic forklifts to the right locations and automatically adjust the fork position.

The system also optimizes the transportation sequence, by ordering the storage and picking jobs according to the route of the forklift to avoid empty trips (Double Cycle).

Enrico Nebuloni, Executive Partner at Reply: »For me, GKN was one of the first projects for a German customer. Our goal was to break the perceived complexity and rigidity of the then SAP Warehouse Management, that could be intimidating for users, by adding flexibility to the intralogistics processes with our Real Time Transportation Guidance System. We were happy to get a chance to demonstrate, that our quality was ready for an international market. I am really grateful for the 20 years of collaboration with the professionals from GKN, and I am also a bit proud, that the system is still running like a Swiss watch.«

»By now«, Eschbach adds,»the system has become such an integral part of our operations, we can hardly imagine how we’d be working without it. It is absolutely stable, reliable and easy to use and we are happy that we can still ask for support or customizations, when we need it, even after two decades, which in Software terms is an eternity.«



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