To cope with year-on-year growth of 20%,
EMD partnered with Interlogic to
introduce a sophisticated WMS for
inventory control
A QUANTUM LEAP AND MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
In 2013 when Douglas Blair, EMD’s Parts and Distribution General Manager, selected the team at Interlogic as his warehouse management solution provider it was a huge leap of faith. To cope with year-on-year growth of 20%, he was moving his entire operation to a new, much larger site, and simultaneously introducing a sophisticated WMS for inventory control.
EMD represents the Volkswagen Group Brands of Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Skoda, SEAT and Cupra, so the stakes were high. “If we are unable to operate, vehicles are kept off the road and the entire dealer support network could grind to a halt with a drastic impact on our reputation and forward sales. We are determined to break the misconception that European car parts are not available quickly and we have built up to a 93% availability rate for our parts.”
With everything meticulously planned, the EMD team achieved their mission impossible – trading over two sites for a four-week period and shutting down for just one day.
It took some ingenious thinking from both teams. Interlogic set up an off-site test database six months prior to the move. Working with key members of the EMD team, our developers effectively created a ‘phantom database’, and transferred all stock across in preparation.
You can expect to see ‘boots on the ground’ when you commission WMS software from Interlogic, and we will often introduce you to existing customers who have been through the growth curve with us – a problem shared is often a problem halved.
A major factor influencing Douglas’ decision to select MultiPick® was because Interlogic is local, and owner operated. He wanted to be able to have a top-to-top meeting with the boss and he needed the same people who deliver to be easily reachable and available to support and maintain the system. After almost 10 years of their I.T ‘marriage’ these two men still enjoy a coffee together as they plan strategy. Sometimes it’s a rum!
SMART LABELLING AT POINT OF PICK
Another enhancement, designed specifically for the automotive industry, was to devise a unique process to drive up picking accuracy levels. Vital when ensuring customer experience is world-class.
On any given day, one dealership may order 3 very similar looking and similarly packaged parts. Let’s say brake pads – one set for an A3, a set for an A4 and one for a Q4 e-tron. At the Pick Face these can look worryingly similar. We designed a barcoding validation so pickers can scan when in the aisle as a double check before labelling. This has led to almost 100% pick accuracy which flows on into dealerships’ ability to plan with confidence.
“Only through using the MultiPick® solution day-in and day-out have we been able to find these rich sources of operational growth. The team constantly challenge themselves to think of new ways to keep improving.”
After such a high-pressure launch, things settled down quickly and the teams got down to making improvements – to squeeze every last drop of efficiency out of the system. It was like a race car engineer fine-tuning the motor on a Le Mans Audi R8.
Douglas Blair talks us through some of the incremental gains: – “As an example, Richard Jones my Warehouse Manager, with his team, have been focusing on pick-rate speed and they’ve managed to double that in the last 5 years while improving accuracy at the same time. Given the scale of the operation with in excess of 90,000 parts moving through the warehouse each year and the fact that the motoring parts range in size from tiny to huge, that makes for a significant cost saving.
To save time, EMD now has printers installed on their forklifts so there is no need for machines or humans to return to centrally based printers. Little software changes along the way made this all possible. There was no need for a full re-think of the system, rather constant evolution paved the way for efficiency gains.
“A big one is how the team put small parts into the aisles – these are now put away as Inwards Goods into totes with dividers, and this box becomes a part number in itself. So instead of taking a whole lot of parts to a location and then trying to find homes for them it’s all done at the outset. Picking is also made simpler because there is zero mess in the aisles – this is a great example of an operational change backed up with WMS I.T innovation. It’s developments like these that have sped the pace up and made our inventory control more efficient.”
21 YEARS OF PROGRESS
As I interviewed Douglas in his office, the dull thuds of construction rang out from the new warehouse site next door. When he started at EMD the PDC (parts distribution centre) was a 600m2 warehouse and the entire organisation had only 26 staff. Since then, EMD has flourished and now employs 150 people in sales and aftersales. As Kiwi’s fall ever more in love with European styling, reliability and after-sales care, his operation has kept pace. It’s a wonderful success story and one that Interlogic is delighted to play a major role in.
“Instead of taking a whole lot of parts to a location and then trying to find homes for them it’s all done at the outset. .’’
Douglas Blair General Manager, EMD
A CIRCULAR FLOW - ELECTRONICALLY BALANCING THE BOOKS BETWEEN THE ERP, DELIVERY, AND INVOICING
A dealer order now flows seamlessly into MultiPick® from EMD’s Incadea ERP system. Dealers can only ‘live’ order things which are already in stock. Both the WMS and the ERP will always therefore balance. An order sits on the MultiPick® screens where it can be allocated to make best use of available human resources for despatch. Next day delivery is the key, but it matters little if it’s despatched in the morning or at 5pm. The last item picked for each dealership order creates a message for the ERP system to provide an electronic invoice for the dealership.
EMD has recently upgraded their system so it’s 100% Cloud based. The system sends an electronic packing slip from within the ERP to a specific dealer, alerting them to the fact that their order has been despatched at a certain time – they know exactly what to expect and can accurately schedule into their workflow. No paperwork needs to accompany the order.