Completed WMS projects

Berthold Vollers GmbH

Selecting a Warehouse Management System

Branch

• Food industry
• Logistic service provider industry
• Freight forwarding industry

The team warehouse logistics was asked for support by the company BERTHOLD VOLLERS GmbH (VOLLERS) at determining potential suppliers for an electronic information system (Enterprise Resource Planning System and Warehouse Management System). During the first years since its foundation in 1932 in Bremen by Berthold Vollers the company primarily was engaged in the storage and transport of raw coffee. It then gradually extended its range of products and services. In the meantime VOLLERS has become a world-wide operating logistic company with an international customer base and subsidiaries in Bremen, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Riga, Tallinn, Taschkent and the Ivory Coast. The company’s scope of activities includes storage and distribution, documentation and customs clearing, sampling, weighing, blending, grafting and the transport of different goods, mainly coffee, cocoa, tea, baking seeds, tobacco, cotton, wool, yarns, metals and different piece goods.

Intention and goal
In recent years the VOLLERS group has experienced a considerable growth. The existing IT systems no longer were sufficient to meet VOLLERS’ increasing requirements. Thus, the company decided to revise and modernise the complete IT structure and asked the team warehouse logistics to provide substantiated information about suitable IT-suppliers and their systems.

This should on the one hand ensure that the current functional requirements as well as future IT demands will be met by the IT system. On the other hand it should be ensured that the potential IT supplier “suits” VOLLERS.

Definition of requirements
VOLLERS defined the requirements on the future IT system according to its longterm group-wide IT concept. Important aspects were, among others, the uniform support of all transport orders (internal and external) a well as an international ranking of the potential supplier.

International Market Survey WMS
VOLLERS used the online WMS selection as well as the online ERP selection to search for potential suppliers. The online WMS selection is based on the International Market Survey Warehouse Management Systems which is carried out by Fraunhofer IML. This survey studies the WMS market by means of a questionnaire and reveals the performance of currently 74 WMS in about 3,000 single aspects.

After the data had been evaluated 10 IT suppliers remained who , thanks to an extensive scope of functions and an international ranking, met the requirements of VOLLERS (e.g. the management of batches and minimum durability).

Workshop IT selection
During a workshop together with the team warehouse logistics the potential IT suppliers were put to the „acid test“:

• The functions of the offered IT systems were rougly compared, weak and strong points were pointed out
• The suppliers were compared with regard to company size, number of employees, references, etc.

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