News

Leading express-delivery company, DPD, picks SOLVO for warehouse optimization

17.03.2014

The latest iteration of the warehouse management system, Solvo.WMS, was successfully implemented at a warehouse of the DPD Company – a global provider of logistics services and a recognized leader on the Russian parcel and cargo express-delivery market.

The latest iteration of the warehouse management system, Solvo.WMS, was successfully implemented at a warehouse of the DPD Company – a global provider of logistics services and a recognized leader on the Russian parcel and cargo express-delivery market.

The company operates an extensive road delivery network spanning all of Europe, link virtually every country in the world with over 830 terminals situated in over 40 countries. Each of the company’s warehouses is equipped with state-of-the-art technology and is compliant with international quality standards. DPD is also a provider of 3PL-operator services and in order to follow international quality standards, a decision was make to introduce a reliable WMS-system. By visiting a warehouse of one of SOLVO’s clients and getting familiar with the effectiveness of the system in real life, company management made a decision to automate warehouse processes with the help of Solvo.WMS. Once again, implementation was carried out in the shortest time possible – three weeks. The warehouse, where SOLVO’s system is operating, is located in Podolsk and used for secure storage of the company’s clients’ promotional products. What sets this facility apart is the large variety of product items (office supplies, textile products, souvenirs and others) stored in floor and rack storage in 5-6 tiers. The warehouse is serviced by a stacker truck and 10 pickers.

Additional modules

To achieve more efficient warehouse operations, the client requested the installation of additional modules from SOLVO:

• Billing module (Solvo.Billing), which helps warehouse employees calculate the cost of secure storage services by maintaining agreements and prepare documentation needed to file reports for the services provided. Thereby, the module enables the company to provide its clients with a high degree of flexibility and transparency.
• In additional to the main Solvo.WMS system, the warehouse is also equipped with the Solvo.Web module for remote request input, access to SKU information, storage locations, performed operations, and request processing times. Thereby, the workload is reduced for operators while security of information exchange is enhanced.
• The EDI module was selected to replace paper-based information exchange as it complies with EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) standards. EDI establishes semi-automatic creation of work documents and reference lists when a stable connection does not exist between the WMS and ERP-system or it is not possible to set up an extended interface, which is very important for running a warehouse without any work stoppage. Reference lists and documents at the warehouse are loaded from files of various formats received via email or an external disk.

Specificities

One of the idiosyncrasies of the project included a successful integration of Solvo.WMS with the ArcGIS system, used by the client. The ArcGIS system makes it possible to visualize (present as a digital map) large volumes of statistical data with geographical reference.

How it works

Due to the established gateway between Solvo.WMS and ArcGIS, it is possible to determine and view where an item is currently located. Using the web-module (Solvo.Web), the client can enter a request in Solvo.WMS, obtain the quantity of stock at the warehouse, and determine the status of an item (available, shipped etc.).When the request is created, the person in charge at the warehouse schedules and sends the tasks to the warehousemen. Next, the receiving and shipping processes are performed. Planning, assembly, and order allocation are carried out prior to shipping. The Solvo.WMS system generates the pallet location number. After this, a product label with the pallet number is printed and applied to the item as this information is sent to the ArcGIS system automatically (due to the established gateway between the two systems). By enetering the pallet location number in the ArcGIS system, the client will now know the exact location of the item.

Results

Today, the DPD warehouse is fully compliant with international standards, while warehouse employees can take pride in how easy it is now to carry out all types of logistical operations as a result of Solvo.WMS system implementation.