First-class dental care has been GC Corporation's ambition for over 25 years, not only in product development but also in delivery capability. The European location, GC Europe, in Leuven, Belgium, supplies distribution partners as well as directly to dentists and dental technicians throughout Europe and the Middle East. In contrast to the pharmaceutical trade with its traditional lunchtime and evening peaks, deliveries at GC Europe are made three to four times a day at fixed times. To this end, items are picked continuously. The corresponding orders are already in the system up to 24 hours in advance. In order to sustainably optimize this important hub, GC Europe made the largest investment in its company history to date to significantly increase storage and picking capacities. "The new installation offers us compact storage options and at the same time greatly increases the efficiency of order picking. We have more than doubled our capacity without building additional storage space and without having to hire additional staff," says Walter Bogaerts, Vice President Supply Chain at GC Europe. He goes on to explain why Knapp was chosen to implement the automation: "It was definitely an advantage that Knapp came out of the pharmaceutical industry. As a result, they have a great affinity with our industry. It was also important to us that our partner had experience with the integration of SAP EWM."

Shuttle system for efficient order fulfillment

GC Europe opted for an automation solution based on the Evo-Shuttle system from Knapp. The two-aisle Evo-Shuttle with around 12,500 storage locations is supplied by four ergonomic Pick-it-Easy workstations. This enables flexible picking of customer-specific orders and their subsequent buffering until delivery. Three manual stations and four work stations for incoming goods complete the expansion, with which GC Europe is equipping itself for future growth and possible market changes. The KiSoft software package from Knapp is responsible for controlling the system and connecting it to the customer system. "The innovative approaches that we are pursuing with our technology and our expertise as a value chain tech partner with this concept offer GC Europe numerous advantages along its supply chain. The low-complexity concept is another milestone in supporting business growth," says Harald Gaulhofer, Head of Sales DACH Healthcare Solutions at Knapp.

Direct shuttle integration into existing SAP solution

GC Europe relies on an SAP IT strategy. All logistics processes in the distribution center are controlled by an existing WMS solution with SAP EWM in S/4HANA. To ensure seamless integration of the new automation solution, the Knapp Group's SAP competence center, Knapp IT Solutions, introduced the SAP EWM MFS WCS module and Knapp Building Blocks into the existing SAP EWM solution from a third-party provider.

Knapp Building Blocks are prefabricated packages based 100 percent on SAP coding. They enable the connection of Knapp automation solutions in SAP EWM without the use of middleware and also provide industry-specific process requirements as a solution in SAP. "This software solution with SAP EWM MFS and our Building Blocks creates a harmonized end-to-end SAP system landscape in line with GC Europe's IT strategy. In addition to the direct integration of the Evo-Shuttle system, we were able to use our Building Blocks to supplement the SAP EWM standard with a customer-specific order start for the automated area and provide optimizations for the RF picking process in the new stations. The implementation based on existing and tried-and-tested Building Blocks enabled a smooth and low-risk integration into the existing system for GC Europe," explains Thomas Furthmayr, Managing Director of Knapp IT Solutions.