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Warsteiner en route to successful SAP EWM implementation with io-consultants

22.02.2017

The Warsteiner Group is implementing SAP EWM as its company wide standard warehouse management system, with the support of io consultants. Warsteiner commissioned the latter to manage and organise the tendering and contract awarding processes for the implementation of SAP EWM, based on the firm’s experience in lead consulting and IT project management and its comprehensive SAP EWM know-how.

“This project was largely driven by the increased statutory requirements on batch tracking, but also with a view to the productivity potential that a standard warehouse management system holds,” explains Martin Bitz, Partner at io-consultants. Warsteiner additionally had to improve its IT infrastructure to maintain the levels of quality and productivity needed to meet the growing customer demand for promotional offers, displays, online notification of incoming pallets, and empties management with its complex return of empties processes.

Stacker tracking systems are extremely useful for full-pallet processes – particularly stock withdrawals, loading, and empties management – and for block storage. To this purpose, io consultants analysed and presented comparisons of the technical options, such as positioning with laser technology or position marking, both for indoor and outdoor use. In beverage industry logistics, the challenge is to stabilise wireless radio data transmission for block storage processes, so that short-term data connection interruptions have no impact on staff productivity and data quality.

Warsteiner and io-consultants drafted the tendering documents in joint workshops that focussed on the defined milestones, a ramp-up concept, and support and maintenance requirements. These were followed by more detailed – and very constructive – workshops with the suppliers to define optimisation measures.

Once the appropriate implementation partner had been found, Warsteiner began to draft the SAP EWM blueprint with them. “Thanks to io-consultants, we found the right partner for this complex task and were able to define an unambiguous list of required supplies and services,” says Uwe Salvey, Logistics Manager at the Warsteiner Group.