Actualités

WMS from Consafe Logistics drives El-Giganten

27.06.2007

El-Giganten uses the WMS from Consafe Logistics to control its logistics flows. Cooperation between the two companies started in 1997 and is going from strength to strength.

El-Giganten’s business idea is to be the most effective supplier of white and brown goods, home electronics and related services in the Nordics. It controls logistics for the whole Nordic region from its 80,000 m2 DC in Jönköping in the south of Sweden, supplying over 150 outlets throughout the Nordic region. The DC is one of the largest in the Nordics, measuring more than 14 football pitches and has one of the most advanced Warehouse Management Systems. This gives El-Giganten the flexibility to make extremely large bulk purchases, optimize the flow of goods and facilitate effective transport. About 100 people work in the warehouse.

Cooperation started in 1997
El-Giganten’s aim is to sell products at the lowest prices. Low prices demand efficient logistics and the best WMS. That’s why the two companies began to co-operate back in 1997 when SattStore was first installed. SattStore communicates with 50 trucks equipped with mounted computers. The system communicates with the trucks via wireless broadband and a standard Windows interface. Many of the trucks also contain a label printer to facilitate printing at point of requirement, saving even more time. This method of communication gives full control of goods flow from warehouse to in-store, minimizing stock levels, optimizing picking processes and removing the need for stocktaking.

State of the art system
El-Giganten deals with around 600,000 incoming deliveries and 660,000 outgoing orders per year. High sales are of course around November and December for Christmas, where they move up to 4500 orders in a day. This places great demands on the logistics process and the company needs both a state-of-the-art WMS and state-of-the-art logistics thinking. To ensure truly efficient logistics, El-Giganten focus on three key areas:

• Layout
• Working processes and system
• Smart physical solutions to maximize the functionality available.

Both parties communicate regularly to ensure El-Giganten fulfils its logistics goals. The company frequently involves Consafe Logistics in its thoughts about improving functionality and in turn, Consafe Logistics produce functions specifically designed for the specific dilemmas associated with moving very large quantities of white goods. These include special booking functions for incoming goods and leaving lorries, cross docking and specially designed “big box algorithms” for moving white goods with the use of specially designed clamp trucks.

Internet creates new challenges
The recent strong growth of Internet sales has put further demands on the picking process. Previously, the DC would deliver bulk shipments of goods to the retail outlets, now the company delivers individual items direct to people’s homes. El-Giganten met this challenge by refining picking routines to simplify picking and packing of small individual items such as digital cameras.

Voice in the future
Voice controlled technologies have been successfully implemented into other DCs in the DSG group and this seems the next likely step for El-Giganten.

Successful partnership with the DSG group
DSG International has chosen Consafe Logistics as a supplier in its process of modernizing several of its warehouse management systems in Europe. The group uses SattStore WMS together with TraffiCom truck terminals at its Italian retail chain UniEuro s.P, which currently operates 96 stores, throughout Italy. Consafe Logistics has also installed systems at Electro World, a DSG group company in the Czech Republic, and has agreements to install a WMS with DSG in Greece. Sean Feeney, European Logistics Director for DSG International comments on the reasons for DSG choosing Consafe Logistics as follows. ”Our experience from previous projects together with Consafe Logistics has shown that they are the right partner for this type of project. The company’s expertise in logistics and high quality in project implementation made us want to further consolidate our partnership to include Italy, and also as a long-term partner for future European projects”.