Dynamic development as a logistics service provider

As a media company, Eurotape has been providing services primarily for the home entertainment market and television for over 40 years and has been part of the Bavaria Film Group since 1991. The range of services includes Blu-ray, DVD and CD services. From design to replication, as well as post-production, film restoration, subtitling, audio description and media streaming.

The changes within the media sector, primarily due to digitization, resulted in a decline in the market for VHS and music cassettes and led to the company's decision to further expand its logistics services. The acquisition of external clients combined with branch delivery and e-commerce was successful - today, the distribution division with 15 clients plus sub-clients is not only an independent business pillar, but also the company's main sales driver.

Logistics software: equalizing process optimization

The growing diversity of clients in the logistics sector increasingly pushed the in-house solution for managing processes to its limits. Initially, the flexibility of being able to take into account the many special requests of the individual clients was an advantage, but this system became increasingly too different with the different processes. The desire arose to optimize processes by implementing a WMS with a variety of modules as standard.

Holger Michael, Logistics Operations Manager at Eurotape, sees himself first and foremost as a user of software that has to be functional and elegant to use. With a catalog of requirements, such as multi-client capability, DESADV connection (shipping notification), warehouse transparency, route optimization through multi-order picking and system flexibility with the option of self-configuration, he began his search in 2006 and contacted the Fraunhofer IML.

In 2007, the decision was made in favor of PSIwms from PSI Logistics GmbH. Eurotape started with the first PSIwms solution in 2009 at site 1. A second facility was put into operation in 2011. For this purpose, PSIwms was rebuilt on the basis of the first solution and provided with extended functionality. In 2012, the PSIwms software version of site 2 was then also transferred to site 1.

Logistics services for B2B and B2C

Eurotape's services now include the organization of logistics for 15 clients. These clients are media distributors and are divided into two customer segments: Firstly, the business customer sector, where locations and branches such as Saturn, MediaMarkt, Müller and Amazon are supplied, and secondly, the private customer sector. This B2C area is primarily handled by the clients' webshop solutions. However, a small proportion is also handled via Amazon's e-commerce platform. Warehouse logistics in this B2C business is dominated by the handling of small orders.

Special warehouse structure

In the B2C sector, the orders are small. PSIwms controls the logistics process.

At the Berlin site, there are two warehouses 500 meters apart, which are connected via a radio link and together have over 80,000 storage locations. The number of active warehouse items stored there is currently around 35,900. Both warehouses are operated manually due to the extremely small-scale shipping. In order to be able to easily and variably adapt the warehousing to the different demands, the warehouses are each equipped with shelving and flow racks (multi-level systems) with short channels for many products in small quantities, high-bay warehouses (HRL1 with 3,500 and HRL2 with 4,500 pallet spaces) as replenishment for the picking zones, picking and packing areas, shipping points and the necessary conveyor technology.

In facility 2, a manual overhead conveyor was implemented as a vertical conveyor system for order picking in the three-storey multi-level system, which connects the levels with each other and keeps the transport routes clear. Trolleys without wheels with variably pluggable compartments are suspended from this track and are used for order picking. Even with a load weight of several hundred kilograms, these trolleys can be moved manually with just one finger. A multiple number of orders can be picked in a single pass.

Both warehouses run with PSIwms, but there are different configurations due to the different topologies and strategies. The processes are controlled via the control station and, in addition to goods receipt and inventory management, mainly consist of picking and packing. The internal transport orders are programmed to be route-optimized and combine several transport units. Picking is carried out in multi-order picking via MDT radio data transmission. PSIwms requires a detailed packing check during the packing process.

Intelligent solution: transparent exchange of goods between clients

Normally, the stocks in the warehouse are permanently assigned to specific clients. However, because one client brought in a new company with the same items, a solution was created in which both companies can access the other's stock in addition to their own.

The customer can therefore also see the goods of other clients in their order portal without being aware of the actual ownership structure. When the order is placed and fulfilled in the warehouse, ownership is transferred between the clients at the same time, without incurring additional logistics costs or tying up additional capital by holding stocks in parallel.

Here too, Holger Michael has his eye on the further development of distribution, because this system is setting a precedent. Linking several clients to a shared stock pool will become increasingly popular and, according to his forecast, will become even more prevalent in the future.

Contact:Eurotape Media Services GmbH 12277 Berlin Tel.: 0 30 / 7 42 07-0 E-Mail:[email protected] www.eurotape.de

PSI Logistics GmbH 10178 Berlin Phone: 0 30 / 28 01-28 50 E-mail:[email protected] www.psilogistics.com