Gerealiseerde WMS projekten
Well-known packaging supplier
Analysing the weak and strong points of the WMS
Branche
- Papier- en verpakking
- "Food"
- Dranken
The team warehouse logistics was asked by a well-known packaging supplier to analyse the weak and strong points (WMS-SCAN) of the WMS at its warehouse in Marl.
The company is one of the leading suppliers of packagings for hotels, catering and gastronomy (Horeca) in Germany.
Intention and goal
The company wanted to optimize its warehouse management and therefore was interested in an independent and professional assessment of the information and material flow processes in its warehouse. Fraunhofer IML took over this responsibility in the scope of a two-part project. The warehouse and the order-picking were analysed by means of the warehouse SCAN and a logistic concept was elaborated.
The team warehouse logistics focussed on analysing the WMS used by the company. The goal was to record and document the system’s scope of performance with regard to current and future requirements.
Initial situation
The analysis of strong and weak points was based on the International Market Survey Warehouse Management Systems.
After the scope of functions of the WMS were analysed by means of a questionnaire with about 3,000 single aspects the comapny’s WMS was compared with all WMS in the survey database.
Requirement profile
During a workshop the company and the team warehouse logistics prepared a requirement profile based on the results of the warehouse SCAN. For this purpose, the comnpany’s current and future requirements on a WMS were specified, i.e. all relevant single aspects of the questionnaire were evaluated according to their importance. The requirement profile set the basis for a comparison with all marketable WMS in the database.
Analysis of strong and weak points
During this analysis the functions of the the company’s WMS were compared with the WMS stored in the database so that its strong as well as weak points became clearly visible. The strong and weak points were also classified according to their potentials so that the functional weaknesses of the WMS could be balanced against the benefit which would occur at their elimination.
Result
The information gathered by the WMS SCAN helped the company to make a strategical decision: wether to continue to use the current WMS or to replace it by a new system.
