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Moster starts into the future with new logistics centre and intelligent WMS
25.08.2020
Personal, competent and close - this is the promise of the electrical wholesaler Moster to its customers. In order to keep this promise even in the face of enormous growth and to establish itself as the electrical wholesaler of the future, Moster moved into new company headquarters at the end of 2019 and inaugurated the connected logistics centre at the beginning of 2020.
Moster has made a conscious decision to remain at the headquarters in Ludwigshafen - the city where Rudolf Moster founded the company in 1946.
In the new, four times larger central warehouse Moster relies on the Warehouse Management System (WMS) SuPCIS-L8 from S&P Computersysteme. The WMS takes over the entire control of the logistic processes - from goods receipt to picking and shipping. With paperless, optimised and intelligent processes and data updated in real time, the new WMS ensures future-proof logistics for the electrical wholesaler. In interaction with the SHCware ERP system from SHComputersysteme, valuable synergies are created, making warehouse processes even more efficient. Moster supplies a constantly growing range of more than 100,000 different articles to specialist trades, industry and its own branches.
The new central warehouse offers a 4-storey shelf system with approx. 30,000 storage spaces, a 9-aisle high-bay warehouse, an extensive cut-to-size warehouse and an integrated counter sales area.
Efficient and fast logistics is important in almost every industry. However, especially in the electrical wholesale trade, fast delivery is essential, as craftsmen urgently need certain components on their construction sites and often cannot wait another day. For this purpose S&P has designed a process that enables lightning-fast and yet efficient order picking: Next-Day-Delivery is standard for almost all orders and an express counter with its own order picking system handles those orders that are needed within an hour.
The high-bay warehouse offers the possibility to store larger articles and long goods in separate areas. These articles are picked with high speed vehicles to optimise the routes and are provided with a shipping label directly during order picking using mobile printers. With this lean process time and shipping packaging can be saved. Another industry solution that S&P offers for the electrical wholesale is the integration of a separate replenishment area for cables in the high bay warehouse. The cables can be picked at the cable cutting rack in the desired length and the WMS supports this flexible process with an automatic replenishment logic.
In the shelving warehouse, route-optimised and cross-order picking is carried out using the Pick & Pack method. Here, too, the warehouse management system optimises the processes with an intelligent logic: the dispatch volume is calculated by SUPCIS-L8 before the picking process and the picking trolley is equipped with the corresponding dispatch containers. The employee picks directly into the shipping containers - so there is no need for repacking at the packing stations.
The SuPCIS-L8 cockpit with customizable dashboards is used by Moster not only in the control center but also on large screens that can be viewed by all employees in the pick area. The employees can thus quickly record the number of pending orders as well as the replenishment status at any time and thus keep an eye on every area.
This allows the employees to coordinate themselves independently and perform tasks whose priority is the highest. This relieves the control center and ensures optimal utilization and distribution of the work force. With 100,000 articles in the assortment, of which more than 20,000 are in stock, Moster already has a very wide stock range. In addition, in order to offer its customers lightning-fast delivery of almost any desired article from the approximately 2 million possible articles in the industry, Moster relies on cross-docking - also for goods procured individually for customers. This important logistics process could be significantly optimized with the help of the intelligent logic of SuPCIS-L8: Time and effort have been massively reduced.
The smooth interaction between the ERP system SHCware and the WMS SuPCIS-L8 offers many more advantages. For example, Moster was able to set up a special picking area where customer projects are picked and buffered according to the order. The customer can then call up the dispatch of individual items from his total order as required. For this type of provision of articles and the guarantee of lightning-fast dispatch, a smooth integration of SuPCIS-L8 in SHCware and real-time data updating is essential.
»With the move to our new central warehouse and the use of intelligent technologies we are now optimally prepared for the future. S&P has understood how to optimize our existing logistics processes and to complement them with new, customized strategies. With our new scalable WMS SuPCIS-L8, nothing stands in the way of further growth through increased customer service«, says Götz Aumüller, managing director at Moster.