Completed WMS projects

Gärtner Pötschke GmbH

Advice during the selection of a warehouse management system

Branch

  • Mail order industry
  • Retail industry

The team warehouse logistics helped the gardening company Pötschke GmbH to prepare a performance specification and to preselect providers of warehouse management systems (WMS).

Pötschke is one of Germany's five oldest (still existing) mail order companies. It sells gardening accessories, plants as well as garden and indoor equipment to final customers and to catalogue aggregators, i.e. persons who collect orders for a commission fee.

Motive and target
Because of growing orders Pötschke has experienced during the last few years an overproportional growth. This increase in volume was compensated for by several constructional expansions. However, the currently used ERP modules which support the logistic processes from goods receipt up to the provision of articles at the picking stations are no longer suitable to meet the customer requirements for quality and a quick handling of their orders. For this reason, a suitable WMS provider had to be found whose software efficiently supports the logistic processes from the goods receipt up to the provision at the picking station and which "fits" Pötschke's business structure.

Requirements specification
During the first step the team Warehouse logistics recorded and documentet the warehouse processes, material and information flows at the warehouse location in Kaarst where the articles are handled at different buildings.

Based on the processes recording during the as-is analysis and under consideration of another constructional expansion a target concept was developed together with Pötschke during a workshop. This concept represents the desired warehouse processes from the goods receipt up to the provision at the picking statins from the WMS viewpoint. Based on this target concept the team warehouse management prepared a performance specification; the details were agreed upon with Pötschke at another workshop.

International Market Survey WMS
To facilitate the selection of the tendering WMS providers the team warehouse logistics used the performance specification and the online WMS selection to prepare together with Pötschke a software requirements profile. The online WMS selection is based on the International Market Survey WMS.

On the occasion of a workshop the functions of the offered products were compared with the requirements profile to identify the strong and weak points of the providers. Furthermore, the providers were checked with regard to company size, number of employees, references, etc. Based on these work steps five WMS providers were selected who best met Pötschke's requirements.

Call for bids and selection of providers
Then the team warehouse logistics prepared the tender documents. The strictly defined offer structure facilitated the objective comparison and evaluation of incoming offers regarding price, support and functions. The team warehouse logistics presented the results to Pötschke at a workshop. Three selected providers were invited to present their offer at an event moderated by the team warehouse logistics.

Result
The consulting by the team warehouse logistics achieved the following results:

  • A performance specification defining all functional requirements suitable for a call for bids
  • A list of providers whose WMS meet the requirements and whose business structure fits that of Pötschke
  • Tender documents which facilitate an effective comparison
  • Moderation of the offer presentation by the selected providers and final recommendation of a WMS

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