Knapp IT Solutions GmbH, the Knapp Group's SAP EWM competence center, has been supporting the Frutura sites in Hartl and Sattledt, Austria, and optimizing their SAP EWM solutions via its 24/7 SAP EWM Service Desk since 2020.

As a wholesaler, the company supplies one of Austria's largest food retail chains with fruit and vegetables on a daily basis. In order to sustainably secure this supply chain and meet the constantly increasing demand, Frutura acquired an existing building in Vorchdorf and revitalized it into a modern logistics center, a so-called fresh produce hub, with around 7,000 square metres of storage and cooling space.

Frutura uses SAP S4/HANA with embedded SAP EWM for warehouse management and the associated requirements for transparency and traceability regarding the origin and production of fruit and vegetables. "Knapp is available around the clock to answer our SAP EWM questions and has already optimized our existing SAP EWM solutions in Hartl and Sattledt. It was therefore an obvious choice for us to work with Knapp to adapt the software to the requirements of the new fresh produce hub in Vorchdorf," explains Gerald Goldgruber, Strategic Head of Process Management and SAP at Frutura.

The collaboration between Frutura and Knapp began back in 2020 when Frutura was looking for 24/7 support for its SAP EWM solution. This developed into a partnership that has long been more than just a hotline service, as Gerald Goldgruber reports: "Knapp is the ideal SAP EWM partner for us because they not only have the software expertise, but also the necessary process and industry know-how. Although we didn't originally implement SAP EWM with Knapp, they know our particular characteristics in detail and constantly show us optimization potential, which we continuously implement together."

"Our collaboration with Frutura began with our 24/7 SAP EWM Service Desk and has now expanded into the areas of consulting and implementation. This exactly reflects our aspiration. We see ourselves as a long-term partner and value-adding full-service provider for our customers in the area of SAP logistics solutions. And this is independent of whether we start our cooperation in the course of an initial implementation or with services for an existing implementation," adds Thomas Kovacec, Head of SAP EWM Customer Service at Knapp IT Solutions. Based on a detailed analysis of the processes, material flows and systems at the new Vorchdorf site, Knapp created a tailor-made, comprehensive optimization concept. This included creating new storage locations, adapting the storage location sorting and putaway strategy and expanding the queue determination in the existing SAP EWM implementation for daily putaway and retrieval. Due to the size of the orders and their punctual delivery, Knapp also provides individual 24/7 support to Frutura's approximately 200 SAP EWM users for this fresh produce hub.