Smooth and punctual provision of spare parts is of great importance to many customers, as this is the only way to ensure that their work does not come to a standstill. Using the delivery of spare parts to construction sites as an example, the following article shows how this can be achieved.
Terex Deutschland GmbH ships more than 67,000 spare parts for excavators, wheel bearings and material handling machines from its various locations every year. As part of the American Terex Corporation, the company stands for reliability and speed. Thus the readiness for delivery within 24 hours amounts to 95%. Terex is aware that every day counts, especially for large construction projects.
In order to keep the service promise with over 50,000 spare parts available from stock in a total storage area of 11,600 m², a reliable ERP system is needed as well as fast dispatch processing. Since the data at Terex used to be entered by hand, this was precisely where the company reached its limits a few years ago. Employees in shipping and export at Terex remember: “The packages were packed, weighed and measured by hand in the warehouse. Then the delivery bills and labels were created in the office. Then you had to go back to the warehouse and find the package. It was a laborious process with a high error rate.”
So what to do? What was needed was a powerful scanning and shipping system that could also print barcodes. The most important requirements: It had to fit the existing ERP system Oracle 11i and should cover all carriers.
The Terex project management found what they were looking for at Heidler Strichcode, one of Europe’s largest service providers for shipping solutions. Their shipping system HVS32 not only meets all requirements, but also impresses with its price-performance ratio. Another plus point was the modular design of the system, which allows for customization and extensions.
The HVS32 shipping system has only been in use since 2007 at eleven packing stations in Rothenburg, since 2009 also with an interface to the ERP system. The first successes are already apparent after a short time, with significant time savings. For example, weighing, measuring and labeling are now carried out in just one step directly at the packing station. In addition, label printing is automated for all carriers and requires no user input. This has also reduced the error rate, as errors caused by inadvertently incorrect manual entries are now eliminated. The direct printing of labels also saves time. This requires only a fraction of the time that would be needed for control via a printer driver.
One of the highlights created by the new system is without doubt the newly achieved transparency. The status of an order can now be tracked quickly and easily at any time. Every package for which a label has been printed is automatically held ready for the information system and all data relating to this order can be called up in the HVS32. In this way, the system makes it easy to see visually what the status of each package is and where it is currently located.
The automatic data transfer to the carrier also turns out to be a great help in practice. If the employees at Terex want to know the current location of a shipment, they can call up the carrier’s track & tracing page directly from the system. The carrier’s transit times can also be monitored in the same way. This is a controlling option that was not previously available to shipping staff and which is now highly appreciated.
Reliable and rewarding
Overall, the introduction of the HVS32 has meant considerable time and cost savings. According to site management, three to four employees can now be deployed for other tasks. Colleagues in the warehouse have more time for their core tasks thanks to the fast and transparent traceability. Meanwhile, the new system has not only impressed in terms of reliability and usability – the figures are also right. The ROI has already been achieved three months after the introduction.