40 percent more picks with viastore software

Kaeser Kompressoren is one of the world's leading compressor manufacturers and compressed air system suppliers. Subsidiaries and partner companies sell the compressed air systems of the Coburg-based family business in more than 100 countries. "The organization of the supply chain is therefore the most important task of IT," says Falko Lameter, Chief Information Officer of the Kaeser Kompressoren Group. The hub of logistics is the distribution center in Coburg: not only Europe is supplied with products and spare parts from here, but also the distribution center in the USA. As early as 2002, the decision was made not only for SAP in the warehouse, but also for viastore: As an SAP software company and international provider of turnkey intralogistics systems, viastore supplied the warehouse technology and, as an SAP partner, integrated the then new distribution center into SAP.

Requirements for the supply chain have changed

In addition to the high-bay warehouse, 19 warehouse lifts, a small parts warehouse, the driverless transport system, the conveyor technology, 6 small parts packing stations, 11 pallet packing stations and a buffer warehouse for faster loading of the up to 100 trucks per day were connected to the SAP system over the course of time. Since then, however, the demands on logistics and the entire supply chain have changed fundamentally, as Falko Lameter explains: "Over the past ten years, our distribution has increasingly developed into direct shipping. This is also due to the increased number of variants - we are no longer a classic series manufacturer that has pre-produced products in stock. Instead, we largely assemble and ship order-related products in the variant requested by the customer."

Upgrade to SAP EWM

The standard functions of SAP EWM were supplemented by customized screen dialogs for the stationary workstations.

In 2012, Kaeser decided to upgrade to the current software version SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM). A major advantage of SAP EWM is that the control of the underlying systems - automatic pallet and small parts warehouses, shuttles, automated guided vehicles and conveyor technology - can be connected directly to the warehouse management and material flow system. "EWM's material flow computer is designed to connect directly to the technology," explains Rainer Kemmelmeier, Applications Manager Logistics in Kaeser's IT organization. In the past, the warehouse lifts were controlled via an SAP add-on from viastore, for example, but today this is fully integrated into SAP EWM.

Individual adjustments were necessary

A major focus of viastore software was on programming the user interfaces, i.e. the screen dialogs for the employees at the picking and packing stations.

"The standard version of EWM offers extensive control station functions and features for mobile transactions via radio," says Kemmelmeier. "However, we also have many stationary workstations in our distribution center for which the EWM standard does not offer suitable dialogs.

Therefore, a large part of the task for viastore was to develop dialogs tailored to our requirements." The user only has the input and communication options that they actually need. This significantly reduces the possibility of making mistakes.

Next step: SAP HANA

Today, significantly more packages leave the distribution center - the packing process is 50 percent faster.

After just a few months, the distribution center was converted to SAP EWM. But the Kaeser and viastore experts were not allowed to rest after the go-live of SAP EWM: All of Kaeser's business software was converted to SAP HANA. Falko Lameter emphasizes that HANA is a completely new software that is also based on a new type of database. "With HANA, you basically only have one table of documents, the original postings," explains the IT manager. "Evaluations are made on the fly - they are only calculated when a request is made and are not stored anywhere. This architecture significantly reduces the size of the database."

Update of the WMS took place during operation

However, before a migration to SAP HANA was possible, the entire software landscape had to be brought up to date. This also applied to SAP EWM, which was introduced in version 7.1 - but version 9.1 was already available.

"So we had to start the next project straight away, just after we had completed open-heart surgery," smiles Lameter. The biggest challenge in updating the warehouse management system was that all the work had to be carried out during ongoing operations.

"The system runs from 5 a.m. to midnight during peak order times, often on Saturdays too - that alone reduced our time for testing the software enormously," explains SAP consultant Martin Rommler from viastore Software. "We only had a certain amount of time at the weekend to connect the technology to the test system, free up storage locations and check the functions."

One of viastore's tasks was to carry out the update from SAP EWM 7.1 to 9.1. "We had to ensure that the processes would also run in live operation," explains Harouna Mohamadou, Team Leader SAP Consulting at viastore Software. At the same time, new features were implemented to optimize the system during the update. However, new dialogs or user interfaces were not necessary. As a result, the employees in the warehouse did not notice the software changeover at first. "Only the controllers suddenly got their reports much faster," recalls Lameter.

Accelerated processes

It's not just the controllers who are pleased with the increased performance. The processes in the distribution warehouse are now significantly faster with SAP LES: delivered goods are processed 20 percent faster, there are 40 percent more picks, the packing process is 50 percent faster, warehouse activities and evaluations are 20 times faster. "We wouldn't have been able to cope with the daily load that we ship every day with the LES solution," emphasizes Rainer Kemmelmeier.

Markus Müllerschön

Contact:

Kaeser Kompressoren SE 96450 Coburg Tel.: 0 95 61 / 6 40-0 E-Mail:

viastore Software 70469 Stuttgart Phone: 07 11 / 98 18-0 E-Mail: [email protected] www.viastoresoftware.de