Knapp ITSolutions, the Knapp Group's competence center for SAP Extended Warehouse Management solutions, realized and implemented the logistics software as a template solution in two fully automated and three RF-managed distribution centers in Austria.

With more than 50,000 different medicinal products in stock, Kwizda's Pharmaceutical Trade division ensures a full supply of medicines to public pharmacies, general practitioners' pharmacies and hospitals in Austria from a total of 5 locations, starting a highly automated process with every order that ensures the order is completed for delivery in an average of 20 minutes. This means that around 150 pallet deliveries and around 80,000 delivery items are processed every day.

"For us, the punctuality of our deliveries is a key factor in retaining our customers. We create trust with our stable availability and process reliability. In order to secure this in the long term and sustainably, we decided to align our IT landscape in SAP throughout. The SAP Extended Warehouse Management logistics module was chosen for our pharmaceutical trade. Thanks to its many years of experience in pharmaceutical logistics, Knapp is the ideal SAP EWM implementation partner and combines the necessary process and IT thinking," says Thomas Brosch, Managing Director of Kwizda Pharmahandel.

SAP EWM tailored to the needs of the pharmaceutical trade

The template solution with SAP EWM by Knapp replaces the previous warehouse management system, which was not from SAP. The new software system landscape integrates the entire existing system with the container conveyor technology from goods receipt to goods issue at each of Kwizda Pharmahandel's five locations. At the branch in Linz, for example, this includes the automatic order start, the fast-moving automatic machine with special inspection station, 12 manual picking stations, the final inspection stations as well as the automatic document insertion and dispatch preparation.

"Knapp Building Blocks are a key component of the solution. These include optimized order start and wave scheduling, tailored to the needs of the pharmaceutical trade, which allow dynamic prioritization of picking according to progress and, depending on the order type, ensure a combination of automatic and manual order start," explains Thomas Furthmayr, Managing Director of Knapp IT Solutions. "As a solution specifically for pharmaceutical logistics, a shipping cockpit with integrated Google Maps was implemented, which enables tracking and location of the current location or the route of ongoing tours and thus ensures the required transparency of deliveries all the way to the pharmacy. This dashboard can also be used to coordinate the scheduling and rescheduling of tours and vehicles as well as internal transportation between locations for customer deliveries."

Following the go-live of the new software solution at the Graz location in July 2018, the branches in Linz, Grödig and Innsbruck followed at the same time at the beginning of March 2021. The software changeover was completed at the head office in Vienna in January 2022.