The gentle clinking of bottles as the wine cartons are picked sounds like the most beautiful music to Helge Bogisch: "This sound shows me that our business is running smoothly," says the Head of Forwarding and Logistics at WeinTrans GmbH & Co KG. During the tour of the 25,000 square meter warehouse, you can feel the passion that the authorized signatory has for his job. The transport specialist (DAV) has been working for the Baden-based logistics service provider since 2015 and has since made significant changes to the warehouse and transport processes of the versatile company.

When Bogisch joined WeinTrans, the picking of around 150 daily orders was still based on paper lists. There were no scanners and no warehouse management system (WMS) - and the enterprise resource planning system (ERP) had to be replaced. His new employer was also in the midst of a transformation process: the wholly-owned subsidiary of Badischer Winzerkeller had developed into an independent logistics service provider through increasing diversification and new customers from other sectors. Despite its close proximity to the parent company, WeinTrans had become an independent company with its own individual processes. This trend was accelerated by the WeinTrans Service Center, or WTSC for short, which was founded in 1998.

Ambitious project
With this in mind, WeinTrans launched a large-scale software project in 2015 to replace the previous ERP system and introduce a new WMS. In the search for a new ERP system, Navision from Microsoft came out on top, while the decision was made in favor of the PraMag solution from Wanko for the WMS. "Only PraMag was able to map our entire processes, which begin with the transfer of the wines to the Badischer Winzerkeller bottling plant," confirms Bogisch, who was supported by project manager Jasmin Escher during the software implementation. But that's not all: "Wanko was the only provider that could offer us a comprehensive logistics control system for all goods movements in the warehouse with integrated route planning."

From his professional experience at various forwarding companies, Bogisch was only familiar with separate systems for warehouse and route planning. The advantage of an integrated solution was immediately clear to him: "With the Wanko solution, all customer, order and article data is in a single database, which makes the processes faster, simpler and more secure." In this way, the already very ambitious ERP and WMS project was expanded to include the almost simultaneous introduction of the PraCar route planning system from Wanko. In addition, WeinTrans opted for the big bang method instead of the iterative - i.e. step-by-step - software introduction. This means that the new software is implemented in full and introduced at a single point in time.

Fewer errors
"It was a very courageous decision, and the professional support from Wanko was the deciding factor," says Bogisch, who had set August 1, 2017 as the implementation date for the merchandise management system and warehouse management. The route planning system had already been put into operation shortly before this date. The special thing about this project was not only the almost simultaneous conversion of all logistics processes, but also the day of the week: August 1 was not a Sunday, but a working day, which would have quickly led to a standstill in the event of unforeseen difficulties. The picking process began at 10 a.m. on the day of the deadline with PraMag and an active interface to the merchandise management system.

Apart from a few minor teething problems, all processes were fully operational. "The triple big bang was a challenge and it was clear to us from the start that the first few months would be very stressful," admits Bogisch. But with Wanko, they had "a reliable and experienced partner at their side" with whom they solved all the problems. Since then, WeinTrans has benefited from numerous advantages. First and foremost, Bogisch mentions the online scanning introduced as part of the project. Before each of the approximately 1.2 million picks per year, the barcode of the relevant article is now scanned and verified by the system. This means that errors are detected and avoided immediately, resulting in a significant increase in delivery quality.

"Our error rate has fallen from two to almost zero and customer satisfaction has risen accordingly," confirms Bogisch. The expectations of customers from the wholesale and retail sectors and the directly supplied end consumers are not low: every order received by 12 noon must be processed on the same day and, if possible, delivered the following day. This also includes very large orders with more than 50 items and specially built sales displays.
The process is started by route planning with PraCar. The algorithms integrated into the software ensure optimum capacity utilization and the shortest possible routes for the trucks. When it comes to capacity utilization, WeinTrans benefits from its customers in the retail and industrial sectors, for whom steel, granulates and paper tissues are stored, among other things. "In combination with lighter goods, we can use every last cubic centimetre of the volume of our vehicles, which would not be possible with heavy wine bottles alone," explains Bogisch.

More productivity
As soon as the tours have been created and completed, PraMag uses the tour data to calculate the most efficient picking sequence in the various warehouse areas. The resulting orders are printed out together with a barcode and processed according to priorities. "We didn't want to completely do away with paper at this point, especially as the changeover was a real culture shock for many of our long-standing employees who had never worked with scanners before," says Bogisch.
The order pickers, who are now equipped with TC75 touch computers, scan the barcode of "their" order and work through the pick list that appears on the display step by step. Once picking is complete, the consignments are made available in the loading zone. "I can call up the current processing status of all orders at any time at the Wanko control station, which ensures maximum transparency," confirms Bogisch, who can also use the control station to analyze past periods. These evaluations show that productivity has increased by around 10 percent.

Conclusion: One year after the go-live of the new logistics control system, the processes at WeinTrans are running better than ever. Nevertheless, Bogisch already has his sights firmly set on the next stage of expansion. By 2019, with the help of Wanko, the company's twelve drivers are to be equipped with mobile devices in order to digitalize the last link in the supply chain.