Warehouse Management Success story
Simmonds Transport has been in business for 36 years, offering transport, warehousing and value-added services such as contract packing.
that it would work having confidence in Clydebuilt, and at no point did I worry that it wouldn’t work,” said Neil. “Clydebuilt’s experience in integration was fantastic. They gave specifications of file formats and helped NOM map out required fields and the data flow.”
Jamie Barr, managing director of Clydebuilt Solutions, added: “When Simmonds first approached us with the requirement to put together a full EDI integration in a matter of weeks, I was concerned – the timescales were short, and there was no margin for error. I believe the secret to the success of this project was that our development and project staff formed an extremely effective and efficient team with key staff from Simmonds and NOM, the communications were good and any problems were raised and eliminated with minimum of disruption.”
Utilising Clydebuilt’s RF processes with the link, staff at Simmonds virtually don’t have to touch the computers any more. NOM’s system sends an EDI file to Simmonds that creates pre- advised Goods-In automatically. This in turn triggers the automatic printing of a Goods-In check sheet. The operator is also notified of the order via an email. The picking operation is similar; an order comes in electronically, and a pick list is automatically printed and issued to the operator.
Faster and easier
Steve Powell, NOMS account manager at Simmonds said: “It’s faster and easier. For
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put away it’s virtually impossible to put pallets away in the wrong location. On the pick its fool proof; errors could only be made if the operators physically overwrote something.”
Some of the success of the project can be attributed to Neil getting complete buy-in from his staff in the first instance. Neil believed he should understand the main principles of how the new solution worked before the implementation stage. To that end, he researched some information that was historically given to him from Clydebuilt
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has reduced from 3 to 4 hours to 20 to 30 minutes.
Focusing on the future
The whole integration process has changed Simmonds Transport’s view for the future. With the ability to streamline the operations with so many added benefits – including speed of delivery and increased accuracy – it is obvious to Simmonds that the way forward is to bring more customers on board with the same principles. Since the system
For put away it’s virtually impossible to put pallets away in the wrong
location. On the pick its fool proof; errors could only be made if the operators physically overwrote something.”
– Steve Powell, Simmonds Transport.
and was trained on the ‘dos, donts, ins and outs’ of bar coding and RF. He communicated his knowledge to his staff who agreed on the benefits, and from the start everyone at Simmonds was ready to welcome the change.
As for NOM, the company is noticing the major benefits throughout all of its interactions with Simmonds. The fast flow of information between companies has made sizeable improvements in processes by the removal of spread sheets and manual data entry. NOM has gained extra man hours since the introduction of the system, and the length of time taken to receive a full load
went live potential clients have visited the site and Simmonds reports that it is now practically winning business without trying due to system expertise.
Neil Simmonds concluded: “For such an important fast-flowing customer as NOM, with their 24/7 production facility, I knew how important it was to get it right. It’s the best investment made in a long time. It’s the sort of investment that not only saves the company money, but also helps drive the business forward.”
July 2011
MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT 49
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