Case Study:
Warehouse Management Fiori Project
Problem:
A biologics company was using a paper logbook system to manually track their inventory locations, with no ability to view and manage inventory holistically. The company understood that this represented a major compliance risk, in addition to being an inefficient and mistake-prone system. Furthermore, doing retroactive reporting on inventory locations, movements, histories, and volumes was virtually impossible. As such, they came to the conclusion that they needed to adopt a Warehouse Management System (WMS) in order to address the problem.
Solution:
A WMS project was begun, which involved all essential inventory processes: inbound, outbound, physical inventory, staging, bin-bin, and other internal movements. The scope of the project included all warehouse areas and manufacturing suites, as well as the ability to add on new structures. Endeavor was engaged to blueprint and delivery the final design, manage the overall project, and employ a modified version of SAPs Activate methodology to execute it all in agile sprints.
SAP’s Warehouse Management module was picked to be the backbone, which was in line with the overall ERP system being used elsewhere. Mobile devices using Fiori as the frontend were introduced in order to enable SAP transactions and scanning critical barcode tags. In light of the client’s limited resources, Endeavor was able to ensure and manage the execution of the project management, all SAP configuration, Fiori development (14 applications), technical development, change management, hardware selection, testing, data conversion, knowledge transfer, and every other aspect of the engagement.
Benefit:
The basic benefits of having an electronic record and inventory bin and movement accountability were quickly realized. The client’s manufacturing suites were now electronically connected to the sourcing warehouse for staging processes via control cycles. Pick and Kanban strategies were implemented, new labels and forms were generated for rapid Fiori app use, and entry mistakes were prevented. Inventory reporting was now readily available, and the overall improvements allowed personnel to focus on true value add initiatives. Time and money were saved, while major write-off errors associated with the previous inefficient paper process were avoided.