1. Customer profile
With its 14 years’ market experience, Scotch&Soda is one of the leaders in the Polish clothing industry. Since its conception, the company has specialized in creating and distributing top-quality clothes for young men. Today, these include two extremely popular brands: Scotch&Soda and Soda. The company’s offer is available through a network of approximately 200 sales outlets across the country. The company is now focusing on developing its own sales network, as well as franchise outlets in shopping malls.
2. Pre-deployment situation
Prior to the deployment of Consafe Logistics WMS Effect Warehouse System, the operations at Scotch&Soda were supported by ERP Symfonia software only. Therefore, warehouse management consisted in using the so-called manual method — the goods were stored in common space, manually sorted and labeled. This led to many errors in picking and stock management, which in consequence made the process of storing clothes and transporting them to sales outlets much more time-consuming. Furthermore, with such working methods in place, the company was unable to effectively use its entire storage space available.
And given the company’s dynamic growth, these problems were becoming increasingly burdensome. It was then decided to seek a solution that would not only eliminate these problems and enable full use of the warehouse, but one that would also cause no disruption to the daily operations at Scotch&Soda. In order to make the right decision, the offers of various IT logistics solutions vendors were analyzed. This allowed for selecting the best one: "We were looking for a partner that would not only offer logistics process implementation and streamline our warehouse operations, but also develop a WMS system ensuring alignment with our company’s dynamic growth. Consafe Logistics, as one of very few companies, offered an end-to-end solution meeting all our needs," explains Karol Andrzejewski, Chief Sales Network Development Officer at Scotch&Soda. Apart from deploying the Effect Warehouse software, Consafe Logistics also offered to develop a new system for managing high storage racks and supplied the racks themselves plus fork-lift trucks, Motorola mobile terminals, Zebra label printers, and an IT infrastructure that made WiFi and WLAN networks deployment possible. In this manner, Scotch&Soda was assured that the deployment would bring its management to a whole new level.
3. Effect Warehouse deployment
The proper system deployment process by Consafe Logistics is in each case accompanied by prior detailed logistics consultations: "The major problem with every project is to strike a balance between the expected functionality of the system, deployment time, and its price. In view of that, prior to deploying the Effect Warehouse System in Scotch&Soda, we held a series of working meetings during which we managed to clear all the doubts and arrive at a common position," says Jarosław Bukowski, Sales & Marketing Director, Consafe Logistics. Initial analyses and consultations produced the final project of logistics processes and functionality of the WMS system.
Then the main focus was to deliver equipment for the future warehouse infrastructure. This stage is generally very problematic for the contractor, since the delivery of such elements takes a lot of time to complete the order. However, thanks to the efforts of Consafe Logistics personnel, the delivery period was reduced to minimum, which in turn allowed for swift assembly and installation of the necessary IT infrastructure in both the warehouse and the office.
The next step was to deploy a pilot version of the Effect Warehouse System followed by tests and software settings optimization (this was also accompanied by the first, initial training for the warehouse personnel.) At the same time, warehouse space labeling in line with the new management methods was carried out. Once the tests and the labeling were completed, the production deployment of the Effect Warehouse System was performed, ending in complete success. Following the successful launch of the software, an interface with the new ERP CDN XL system was developed.
The final stage of the project was personnel training. After the sessions devoted to theory, the crew learned the practical aspect of system operation. The training ended with examinations after which the employees were given certificates confirming their competence in operating the Effect Warehouse System.
4. Post-deployment situation
Deployment of an end-to-end storage space management system revolutionized the operations at the Scotch&Soda warehouse: "Effect Warehouse solved all our problems, and it has also improved the storage of goods in the warehouse. The tailored system of warehouse racks and the new methods of storing goods dramatically improved stock replenishment and order completion processes. Whereas thanks to the shipment prioritizing system, we now have full control over the number and priorities of the orders processed. Goods entry also takes much less time than before," explains Karol Andrzejewski. "Moreover, the errors that have so far made our operations so complicated, now are hardly ever encountered." In both companies’ opinion, Scotch&Soda now has a well-designed and organized warehouse that perfectly suits the company’s needs.
New working methods are also praised by warehouse employees who, skeptical at first, shortly came to appreciate the new methods. Thanks to Motorola mobile terminals their work is free of any errors, and is much more efficient. They do not have to handle identification and arrangement of goods any more since these functions are independently performed by the Effect Warehouse System.
The software is covered by a Consafe Logistics warranty. Each failure is quickly reported via e-mail, and removed as soon as possible. However, so far no such situation has occurred. Successful deployment of the end-to-end Effect Warehouse System encouraged both companies to plan other projects: "We hope that thanks to the dynamic growth of the company, our cooperation will expand to include other aspects of logistics," adds Karol Andrzejewski.