Bio Partner is the leading service provider and wholesaler in the Swiss organic market. It is committed to a strong individual organic specialist trade. Under the motto "fresh, personal, cooperative", around 300 employees serve customers in the organic specialist trade, retail trade, gastronomy and the processing industry with a full range of organic products and services. Bio Partner operates sites in Seon (AG) and Saint-Blaise (NE) and has its own fleet of trucks.

A warehouse management system (WMS) such as LOGIS from Dataphone AG is needed to ensure that all customer segments are supplied with the more than 10,000 items ranging from fresh products such as fruit and vegetables, pasta and drinks to natural cosmetic products and raw materials for the processing industry.

Increased efficiency in warehouse management

The process workshops, in which the operational processes and configuration settings of LOGIS were reviewed and redefined, were followed by intensive system tests. Thanks to a detailed planning phase and close cooperation with the warehouse managers at Bio Partner Schweiz AG, the customer is ready for the release change in November 2020, and the new architectural strategy that Bio Partner Schweiz AG is implementing as part of the release change is particularly exciting.

Functions of the LOGIS V21 WMS software

• In addition to batch and best-before date management, the incoming goods process checks a wide range of inspection criteria, such as: Organic certificates, country of origin, delivery temperature, etc.
• Consolidation of several orders from the same suppliers: A solution has been implemented for several orders from identical suppliers, so that simultaneous receipt in the goods receiving department is possible.
• The LOGIS master data handling system handles conversion factors between pieces, liters and kilograms.
• Putaway strategy: A more complex logic leads to better putaway suggestions. Goods are stored as close as possible to the respective picking location.
• System-generated warnings that inform employees as soon as the remaining shelf life of a product is exceeded, including the option of automated blocking.
• Picking end time calculation: This important key performance indicator calculates the expected picking end time, including break times, based on the current picking performance per storage area and the number of employees deployed.
• ABC/XYZ classification of goods and warehouse: For chaotic storage bins, the WMS LOGIS calculates an article qualification based on the goods turnover. The category to which the goods belong must be configured for each storage bin. Putaway suggestions are then executed according to these strategies.
• Goods issue: LOGIS offers pre-picking of small storage areas with system-guided merging of the main picking area to avoid labor-intensive consolidation efforts. Transparent views in the control station enable good monitoring and control of the picking progress as well as loading and dispatch control.
• The LOGIS warehouse management system allows manual and conventional logistics processes to interact with fully automated systems in a unique way. At Bio Partner Schweiz AG, this applies to AutoStore. LOGIS has standard interfaces to well-known automated warehouse service providers for the control of automated components.
• Thanks to the suitability of the latest mobile hardware (mobile computers, forklift terminals, etc.), Bio Partner Schweiz AG is able to replace outdated hardware operated with Windows CE.