Standard WMS too rigid for Bieze

26.07.2016

Bieze BV, a daughter of Wernsing Feinkost Gmbh has chosen WarpSpeed WMS because of it's immense flexibility. Forced by customer demands, Bieze was in need of WMS software that could adapt quickly to new logistical challenges.

Source: logistiek.nl

As supplier of foodstuffs, Bieze Food Group knows like no other how fickle retailers can be with respect to logistic demands. For a month now, the company has been working with Warpspeed, a new WMS from supplier Optimizers aimed at flexibility. »We find it absolutely impossible to manage with standard software now.«

The software system that is to support the logistic processes of Bieze Food Group, has to meet three requirements: flexible, flexible and flexible. »We also supply to the large well-known supermarket chains. Their demands to the way they wish to be supplied with respect to packaging, labels, BBD requirements, EDI messages, etc. are becoming more and more complex and also keep changing all the time. As we consider logistics to be one of our USPs, we certainly also want to meet all these new requirements. At the same time, the margins are depressed and it is crucial that we have insight in the costs.«

Last week, CFO Alexander Drost outlined the challenging situation he and the Bieze Food Group company face. He did this at the office of software supplier Optimizers in Nijkerk who developed the Warehouse Management System (WMS) Warpspeed Bieze has been working with for a month now.

Business rules at SKU level. Hans van Essen, who as senior software developer at Optimizers led the development of the new package, explains how the WMS package was built ‘under the bonnet’ and the secret to the flexibility it offers. We work with so-called localities, virtual stock locations within your own company, at clients, suppliers or logistic partners, for which you can set business rules at various levels. These can range from rules that apply to the whole company, a warehouse, a warehouse location, to rules that only apply to the lowest SKU level. »For example, imagine that the Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn suddenly demands new BBD requirements for a specific product. In that case it is simple to create a new locality policy for it on SKU level. If no specific business rules apply to a product, then the rules of the level above automatically apply. So you don’t have to programme everything all over again.«

Acquisitions and disposal of companies. Bieze Food Group is a family business which consists of various medium-sized companies that work together and are all active in the food industry. Bieze, for example, supplies salads and sauces, Epos is a manufacturer of herbs, Zuivelmaatschappij sells various dairy products and Vers Logistiek takes care of logistics. Financial director Drost gives a tour of the company which is also based in Nijkerk. »As a result of acquisitions, new companies are added regularly, as Jebo in Belgium recently. This also requires flexible software with which we can integrate new companies quickly and effortlessly.« Drost provides the example of the acquisition of the Belgian salad manufacturer Nikita a few years ago. »Nikita was still working with an old AS 400 system which we transferred to Easy Logistics as soon as we could. Due to the constantly changing market and customer-specific demands Nikita also has to cope with, we are bound to the inevitable custom work in the Easy Logistics software. Everyone says that you should conform to standard software, without customising, but for companies such as ours it simply is not an option in this day and age.«

Add-ons for Exact. The WMS package ›Easy Logistics‹ from supplier Exact, which many Bieze Food Group companies still work with, will be replaced company-wide by Warpspeed. The old package will no longer be further developed by supplier Exact. Bieze will keep working with Exact’s ERP software. Optimizers as IT service provider specialises in add-ons for Exact. »But«, emphasises Heiko van der Vlugt, »We built Warpspeed in such a way that it can also run in combination with other ERP systems.«

Tour of one of Bieze Food Group’s warehouses in Nijkerk