SAP design for warehouse management and shipping at Ejot
„After the reorganization of the EJOT group in 2003, the reconstruction of our logistics center according to the latest aspects was an overdue step. Consequently, we engaged clavis berater sozietät to develop the concept of the respective SAP WM application. The project was completed successfully and in-time and I can say: Quality connects. With the new logistics and sales structure, EJOT as the European leader in fastening technology is now optimally prepared for all upcoming challenges."
Andreas Dango (CE Logistics, Building Fasteners Division, EJOT)
The Quality Connection - This slogan of the medium-sized EJOT group is claim and policy. By steady growth, innovative products, acquisitions and diversification the company has evolved from a manufacturer of screws and nails in South Westphalia to a European market leader in fastening technologies. Whether automotive, electrical engineering/ electronics, telecommunication or construction: EJOT is well known among many companies of these branches. Of the approx. 2.000 employees worldwide around 1.300 are working in Germany, further 700 employees belong to international offices and connected companies. 2003 the EJOT group has been reorganized. A divisional organization has been implemented The EJOT Building Fasteners is one of these divisions – all activities concerning development and sales of solutions in the building and construction industries are concentrated in this division. Altogether there are more than 14.500 individual products available.
To adapt the storage capacities to a dynamically growing business, a new logistics centre has been put up at the divisional headquarter in Bad Laasphe within only 10 months. Core of this centre is a new high rack storage with 5.700 spaces. Thus the storage capacity of the location has been quadrupled in one fell swoop. In parallel to the building measures clavis designed the complete SAP application for the storage and sales area of this new logistics complex. Previously the company has completed the migration to SAP ERP 6.0 by September 2007. The SAP module LE-WM was already in use for the old warehouse. However the LE-MOB interface was not included, and thus picking was performed with help of paper documents and booking had to be processed subsequently in the office.
The enlargement of the storage capacities resulted in an increased commodity flow at EJOT. To control the subsequently considerably more complex processes in the logistics centre, clavis evaluated and implemented a catalogue of measures together with the responsible department. One objective was to optimise and reorganise the storage processes, the other was to customise the SAP applications involved. Thus clavis developed specific transactions for the core process elements: high rack storage, consolidation area, packing and goods entry.
Prioritisation of Storage Removal
A main business requirement was the automated assignment of articles like screws, rawlplugs and other connections to the respective orders. To meet these high expectations the standard SAP queue control has been complemented by some important functions: Transfer orders are sorted by their priority and the spatiotemporal optimum usage of the warehouse network of walkways.
Further on the order pickers were enabled to either remove the smallest addressable unit inside a stock or even entire pallets from storage. As soon as an EJOT employee confirms the removal, the application system generates labels that are printed immediately via a mobile printer.
Consolidation Area – Two-stagePicking
In the new build central consolidation area, which is a kind of hub for incoming and outgoing goods, the recorded articles from the different source storage types are gathered. After being checked for completeness they are allocated to the single deliveries.
Using a two-stage picking process the flow of materials has been mapped continuously into the SAP system. Additionally the posting expenditure is minimised by a new mobile transaction that enables the confirmation of a withdrawal and the creation of a split for transfer in a few seconds.
Materials that are picked and assigned via the 'hub' consolidation area are subsequently packed for delivery or prepared for freight forwarding. At this point of processing SAP performs several activities: Confirm transfer orders, change an outbound delivery, create and change a transfer order.
To make packing for the staff as safe and easy as possible, clavis has designed a 'packing monitor'. This transaction summarises all information (e.g. additional packing information, special customer demands) and functions on one single screen and thus supports the packing staff optimally.
Goods Entry – Tailored to the Customer Needs
Because of the great many EJOT products there are a lot of time-critical orders that must be completed safe and fast. Thus an EJOT specific solution has been implemented for the goods entry. With help of a respective list the responsible staff now can match the open transport requirements for putaway with the applicable delivery due documents. This bypass function is fully integrated into the new picking logic and thus prevents henceforth unnecessary putaways into the high rack storage.
Up-to-date with ITSmobile
ITSmobile is used as the mobile platform – a technology based on the latest generation of mobile applications that is characterised by a high flexibility. By the individual adoption of the integrated template generator and style sheets clavis was able to provide the optimum presentation of the mobile transactions for the different mobile terminals (handheld, forklift terminal, etc.).