The Cidev Group was founded in 1973 and today operates seven branches in Europe, Asia and the USA. It is the official representative and distributor of leading manufacturers of active and passive components, electro-optical, electromechanical, microwave and RF components throughout the world.

In the past, managing the logistics processes for tens of thousands of electronic components required time-consuming manual identification and scanning of individual barcode labels for each component. The data for each item then had to be adjusted in order to record it in the inventory management system. The control process was tedious and required a significant amount of time both to process outgoing orders and to view the stock status. Cidev was therefore looking for an experienced integrated supply chain partner with whom it could realize its vision of excellent customer service through technological innovation.

Automated system for the immediate collection of data

Zetes implemented a special conveyor system with the integrated logistics execution software Zetes Medea and the innovative image processing technology ImageID. Thanks to this integrated Zetes Medea system, Cidev is now able to instantly scan a wide range of barcodes from various component manufacturers in different formats, recognize the data and automatically transfer it to Cidev's Warehouse Management System (WMS). The solution then instantly matches the items with the WMS and customer order data and automatically prints a label with the corresponding data from Cidev's catalog. Since implementing this solution, Cidev has increased productivity in distribution logistics by more than 80 percent. The efficient time savings were the decisive factor here.

One challenge was the transparency of the stock data. Zetes Medea enables fast inventory counting with two mobile stations. Each station was specially adapted to the operating environment and equipped with an ImageID camera that reads and records the barcode data on the tape-and-reel packaging of the components. The exact same logic and learned rules on the Zetes-Medea system for verification allows Cidev employees to quickly capture the various barcodes from numerous manufacturers.

Direct transfer of data to the WMS

The solution also feeds the data immediately into the internal WMS. They are classified according to catalog numbers. This provides a completely transparent view of the status of the items in stock. The algorithm also transmits the necessary details for validating the item data and appropriate user notifications for the part number.

Thanks to this solution, Cidev has succeeded in reducing the time spent on stock counts by over 75 percent. This has significantly reduced the workload for employees, allowing them to focus on more value-adding tasks. "Zetes Medea has proven to be a solution with significant added value for our logistics processes - not only because of the more efficient use of time, but also in terms of productivity gains. In our processes, we save a lot of time in checking order picking before shipping to our customers and in carrying out regular inventories. This gives our customers more accurate information about whether the desired components are in stock compared to before," comments Israel Utnik, Vice President of the Cidev Group.

This article appeared in issue 7/23