Manufacturing & Logistics IT - July/Aug 2012

JULY 2012

The European magazine promoting the effective use of IT in supply chain applications

Special Report: WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT Automotive/Logistics special feature: MARUSSIA F1

Also in this issue: Getting it right first time, every time A new chapter with Voice The right fit for fashion logistics Simplifying the Internet of Things

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IF YOUR WAREHOUSE COULD TALK... ...it would tell you that voice-enabled technology can help you reach much higher levels of accuracy.

Today’s voice systems provide a far more accurate method of communicating with warehouse operatives, regardless of spoken language and dialect, helping them to deliver accuracy rates in excess of 99.9%.

This means you’ll have fewer returns to process and fewer credits to provide for those returns – and, most importantly, happier customers with the right shipments at the right time..

Are you listening?

The Voice of The Warehouse

www.voiceofthewarehouse.com

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Get smart on mobility In this edition of Manufacturing & Logistics IT we feature a special report on Workforce Management. This covers many of the current key talking points and latest innovations in the WFM solutions space, as well as what may have driven these developments. One of the key themes considered is whether there is still a strong case for standalone Workforce Management systems or whether there are now more benefits to be had with this type of functionality being integrated within a wider suite. We also look at the Software as a Service (SaaS) model (and the Cloud concept in general) and aim to determine whether it has had any notable level of impact on the Workforce Management-related software solutions market so far. And as a closing teaser we consider what might be the next key developments to look out for in the world of Workforce Management-related software solutions over the next year or two. The current array of WFM systems can be found in many guises, including those that set out to facilitate better scheduling of workforce capacity in the factory or warehouse, systems that look to increase the efficiency of field service personnel, and many more besides.

And as a complement to the views and information contained within the report we thought we would also take a look at recent research findings released by Workforce Management solutions provider Cognito. This research indicates that some 55 per cent of enterprises are struggling to get their workforces to adopt mobility. The findings suggest that over half of enterprises find user adoption of mobility solutions a key issue within their organisation. The research was conducted among over 200 operations, IT and service directors by Redshift Research. Sectors surveyed included retail, distribution, manufacturing, construction and business /professional services. Limited time, budget and resources were declared to be the biggest issues hindering the successful adoption of mobility solutions (36 per cent). The most important factors positively affecting the uptake of mobile technology among the workforce were cited as usability of the technology (33 per cent) and employee understanding of the rationale behind implementation (23 per cent). Despite engagement issues, the research indicates that organisations recognise employee usage and enthusiasm as the most important factor when measuring the success of adoption (33 per cent), alongside increased productivity and service levels.

Ed Holden Editor

Poor executive sponsorship and employee engagement were seen to contribute to slow rates of adoption, with 27 per cent stating these as key issues. Jonathan Chevallier, strategic development director at Cognito, said the results from this survey confirm that despite the wide availability of consumer mobility solutions, smartphones, apps and geo-location tools, there is still a lack of adoption across organisations of all sizes. Chevallier added that organisations can address these barriers head on by considering the implementation of a mobility solution as a large enterprise project, with appropriate allocation of resource, time and change management for sustained, organisation-wide benefits.

With many organisations declaring their workforce to be their primary asset, surely it would make sense to ensure that staff are fully informed as to the benefits to be had – both in terms of their own personal daily work regime and for the overall good of the organisation – from the deployment of mobility solutions. As Chevallier says, the involvement of employees and explaining the rationale behind technology implementation is critical from the outset of any project. With the many business and operational benefits to be had from mobility solution deployment it could be time well spent giving such a project priority while also evangelising your staff in order to reap maximum advantage.

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CONTENTS Manufacturing and Logistics IT July 2012

Automotive Focus 5

Marussia F1

The European magazine promoting the effective use of IT in supply chain applications

Special Technology Report

Editor: Ed Holden

10

Contributors: Steve Howells, Checkpoint Systems

Manufacturing 18

Publisher: Dean Taylor

Workforce Management

Exel EFACS helps Bennett Opie get it right first time, every time 8th Annual European Manufacturing Strategies Summit on the horizon Gartner IT Financial, Procurement & Asset Management Summit 2012

Advertising: Alex Prodromou Designer: Ian Curtis, First Sight Graphics

Planning

24

Production: Carole Chiesa

QAD acquires DynaSys for €6.0 million AK Precision finds the right precision software tool in Seiki Systems Preactor GMPS helps Mars shine ever brighter

Circulation: Sarah Schofield

Printing & Labelling

30

IT Manager: Peter West

Zebra Technologies offers new ZT200 Series Datamax-OʼNeilʼs RL4 portable rugged label printer improves productivity and reduces costs at Segmüller

Accounts: Carolyn Pither

Automatic Data Capture

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Email (publishing): info@logisticsit.com Email (editorial): editor@ibcpub.com Printed by: The Magazine Printing Company plc, www.magprint.co.uk

Box Technologies announces the next generation Motion CL910 Tablet PC Datalogic creates new global footprint in industrial automation Checkpoint Systems: The logistics of protecting profits

Voice

38

Voxware: A new chapter with Voice

WMS 40

Schad: FRoSTA cuts downtime at automated warehouse with ʻanywhere-anytimeʼ alerts Vanderlande Industries – the right fit for fashion logistics

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Transportation Management 44

products. The publishers do not endorse opinions expressed in any article by an outside contributor.

While every care is taken over photographs and illustrations, which are returned when requested,

Microlise adds Incident Data Recorder option to its Fleet Performance solution Navman Wireless: Bullet Express turns to Smart Telematics to enhance driver performance Transporeon drives improved efficiencies for Procurus Eurotech simplifies the Internet of Things with Everyware Cloud 2.0

no liability can be assumed by the publishers for the loss of such materials.

ISSN:1463-1172

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Supply Chain 48

July 2012

Better Life selects Oracle to support growth of its hypermarket business

Automotive

Marussia F1

IT in the fast lane Manufacturing & Logistics IT spoke with Marussia F1’s technical consultant, Pat Symonds, about the team’s recent history, ambitions and current state-of-the-art IT regime that it manages with the help of CSC. arussia F1 may be a relative newcomer to the sport of Formula One, but it already has bold ambitions.

Marussia’s technical consultant and well-known veteran of Formula One, Pat Symonds, first joined the team in the early part of 2011 when it was still known as Marussia Virgin Racing. “At this time everything was very spread around,” he said. “We had a race team up in Sheffield, a design team in Oxfordshire and a marketing team in London. And on top of all that the premise under which the team had entered Formula One was rapidly changing.” Symonds explained that the team had entered Formula One at a time when the FIA (Federation Internationale de

M

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L'Automobile), the governing body of motorsport, had decided that it wanted to reduce costs in Formula One considerably.

“One of their ideas was that they would allow three new teams into the sport,” said Symonds, “and those teams would operate on a different basis to the existing teams; the different basis being provided they kept to a markedly low overall turnover of the business they would be allowed some additional freedom in the technical regulations that govern Formula One. However, Formula One is a fast-moving sport and by the time the team had entered the rules were considerably different. The original idea that the FIA had was that the teams would be able to operate throughout the season for around £30 million. That may

seem like a lot of money but believe me in Formula One terms it’s not. You can certainly add £100 million to that figure to get to even a medium- to high-level team.

At the very top, teams will sometimes be working on budgets in excess of £130 million a year, so you can see there are huge disparities.”

Everything under one roof When Symonds became involved with the team, one of the first things he decided was that it needed to be in charge of its own destiny and needed to bring everything under one roof. He also felt Marussia F1 needed to look at new ways of acquiring

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meeting at which it was decided to move the timeline of the plan from between 15 and 18 months to a substantially shorter period. With no small amount of extra elbow grease, the successful net result was that on 4 July last year the team moved into its new building in Banbury and that was largely the beginning of Marussia F1 as it is today.

Pat Symonds: IT needs to be totally transparent. the large amounts of the IP (intellectual property) required to produce a truly impressive Formula One car. “So I put together a 15- to 18-month plan which first looked at how we could bring everything under one roof,” he said. “I decided this had to be in Oxfordshire rather than in Yorkshire, mainly because Oxfordshire is sometimes known as Motorsport Valley and in business terms it has quite a famous cluster. And as you build a team up it's very important to get the right people into it because the people are the most important part of the whole operation. Therefore doing it in the area where many of those people already were made a lot of sense.”

building where we are now; in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Along the way we needed to get through the current year, so there were some interim positions as to how we would race during 2012. But nevertheless the whole thing was about building the team up for 2013 and it was about this slow progression towards autonomy.” There was one notable change to Symonds’ plans, however, when in Monaco last year Marussia had a high-level

After the team bought the freehold of the building in Banbury it started converting it into an environment where it could operate as a Formula One racing team, not just as a design team. “We took over the assets of Wirth Research and also took on a number of their employees who had been involved in designing and aerodynamics; particularly of the Formula One car,” explained Symonds. “Wirth Research didn't just design the Formula One car; they had other successful racing car projects and a number of other projects in other fields; including aerodynamics. So we took over the assets of the Formula One side and their operation. Then on the 4th of July we had our own little Independence Day. We moved into our new building, had the first board meeting the same day and started the design of the car. We had already been in discussion with Wirth as to what the basic specifications of that car would be,

Taking risks Prior to Symonds’ arrival, Wirth Research had designed and arranged production of the Formula One car for Marussia, and had delivered it to the team to take racing. “So it was very much a customer-supplier relationship,” he said. “But in this sport we have to take risks and have to operate on the boundaries of knowledge. So I put together a plan whereby the car for 2013 would be designed by a team that was totally under Marussia's control and would be built in the

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Automotive

but we were now in charge of its total design.”

Although working with a budget of only £30 million, one of Marussia F1’s bold mission statements is that it wants a realistic chance of a podium finish by 2014; the year the inaugural Russian Grand Prix is to be staged. “Although we have this aim we are fully aware that there are 12 teams that compete Formula One and that the winning positions are normally shared between very few teams,” said Symonds. “Red Bull have

those is something called the Concorde Agreement. This is a reasonably secret document and not something people bandy around. But it's the document under which all the governance of Formula One is determined. It determines, among other things, what it takes to be a constructor in Formula One. You have to be a constructor in order to compete in Formula One. OK, our car was initially designed by someone else but we owned the IP of that car and it's the IP that’s important. So we couldn't go to McLaren and say give us the IP of

“

In motorsports we get very blasé about time, and the reason for this is that the difference between success and failure is sometimes measured in milliseconds.”

dominated for the past few years and McLaren and Ferrari have done well, but there aren't many teams capable of a podium finish. So there was a lot to do and we weren't going to do it in the period required just by using traditional construction and testing methods. So our focus has been on a couple of key areas.

One is the need to really get this heritage of IP that exists within a mature Formula One team and we realised we needed to get that pretty quickly.” To achieve this, Symonds reflected that one option would be to go out and hire everyone he could. “But I know that method doesn't work,” he remarked.

“Building a team is a very difficult thing to do; it needs to be done very carefully and needs to be thought about. You certainly can't just go from 0 to 300 people in the space of a few months; it just doesn't work.”

Symonds considered that there were a couple of effective things that could be done, however. One was to sign a partnership agreement with McLaren.

“McLaren have been involved very successfully in Formula One for many years,” he said. “So we signed five-year agreement which effectively allowed them to pass an amount of IP to us. When I say an amount there are all sorts of regulations that govern Formula One; topmost among

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your car; that's not allowed under the regulations. However what we could do was say help us with the IP of the process and to me it's a bit like the proverb ‘give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he’ll eat forever’. And that was what we were aiming to do; we were aiming to learn to fish. McLaren have been extremely helpful and a lot of our processes are being built around that McLaren process.”

Marussia F1

Computational Fluid Dynamics And in addition to shortcutting Marussia’s IP route Symonds decided that the other major thing to focus on was the team’s IT infrastructure and management. “We couldn't just throw people at IT; we had to work a little bit smarter,” he said. “With Formula One today the majority of performance comes from aerodynamics. Of course there are always other things in the mix; the tyres, the engines, the chassis and all kinds of other things that contribute to the success of the car. But generally speaking nothing contributes more than aerodynamics. The research money that we put into making our car go faster is nearly all spent on aerodynamics. It's where we find the vast amount of our performance. So what we needed to do was think smarter in aerodynamics, and part of the heritage we had in Marussia was a very good Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) capability.”

Symonds explained that CFD is in effect a digital wind tunnel. “It’s a digital space that you design your car in and aim to better understand the aerodynamics,” he said.

“This is one of our major strengths.” In the corridor of the Marussia F1 facility is a powerful cluster of high-performance

The Marussia F1 team.

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Marussia has a group within its tunnel model, putting those parts in the Aerodynamics Department whose primary wind tunnel, testing them, analysing them focus is on correlation. “And this is an area and then at that point deciding whether we where CSC come in and help us too,” he want to go into production,” he said. “With said. “CSC’s HPC services manager, Ian CFD it’s typically around 18 hours for a McKay, provides the expertise we need in normal run, but at that point all we have to high-powered do is produce a computers. We digital design, not a I think pit stops are one of the inherited a system that physical design. We was very powerful but great bits of Formula One because it's can design parts on bearing in mind we're a time when everyone contributes.” our CAD system and only 160 people in total run them through the we needed assistance, and when you’ve CFD simulation, and the total process can got a 72 Tflop supercomputer sitting in a be a couple of days – that’s a big room you don't go to a local IT company for difference to seven weeks and a fraction of help, you go to the specialists. CSC have the cost.” set that system up for us, they look after it for us and they ensure that Marussia’s head Trackside IT of CFD, Daniel Jean, and his team – who are continually working on these simulations – have the very best equipment to work CSC assists Marussia with a number of with.” other IT projects, such as its trackside IT. Ian Jackson, CSC’s trackside IT engineer, is And with CFD it’s not just a more costin charge of this. “We have around 50 efficient methodology, according to people who travel to the races,” explained Symonds, it’s also a way of doing things Symonds, “and effectively they want to work considerably quicker. “Our wind tunnel in exactly the same way as if they were in sessions have around a seven-week lead Banbury. It doesn't matter where they are – time from the concept of what we want to they could be in China, at Silverstone or do to designing it, making parts for the wind wherever – they want their IT systems to be

“

Pit stop camera. computers (HPCs) capable of running at 72 Tflop if working flat out. And as with everything in Formula One this computer system is governed by strict rules in terms of what rate it can be run at and for how long. Symonds pointed out that one of the key benefits of the CFD system is that it gives Marussia a way of determining the aerodynamic development of the car in a very much cheaper way than the traditional method of using wind tunnels. “We do also use wind tunnels, but digital simulation is the future there's no doubt about it,” he said. “It’s the way things will be done and is the way things are done at the moment to a large extent.”

Symonds added that the most important part of doing any form of modelling, whether it be in the digital or the physical domain, is ensuring that you have correlation. “Defining exactly how something in the digital domain correlates with the physical domain is hard in itself,” he said. “What do we want to correlate? Do we want to correlate the forces that we're seeing through aerodynamics, do we want to correlate the flow structures, do we want to correlate pressures; it's a very interesting topic and one that we're putting a lot of effort into.” Symonds explained that

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Trackside IT.

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Automotive

Ian Jackson, CSC’s trackside IT engineer, gets to work.

totally transparent and they want their analysis tools. So we have to set up quite a sophisticated local area network in the garage and engineering offices, which is connected back to the factory. Our team want to be able to run everything they require on local servers and they need to have 100 per cent availability. You can't say to Bernie Ecclestone ‘actually can you hang on for five minutes before you start the race because one of our servers has gone down’. So we need complete reliability, we need very sophisticated systems and we need excellent communication. We’re even doing some of the analysis back at the factory in Banbury in real time, so we've got data coming off the sensors on the cars and we've got people in the factory looking at this data as it arrives.”

Garage Information System For Symonds time is everything. “In motorsports we get very blasé about time,” he said. “And the reason for this is that the difference between success and failure is sometimes measured in milliseconds. I've been in motor racing all my life and a 10th of a second to me is an awfully long time.

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Our Garage Information System, put together by CSC, is used for the purpose of saving as much time as possible at the race track. It makes sure everyone knows what's going on, where they have to be and how long they've got until their next task. So it's a very useful system.”

Pit Stop Analysis

Marussia F1

designer, it’s also about the mechanics of changing the wheel and trying to do it as quickly as possible. I think it's one of the things that has improved a lot since we got rid of refuelling in motorsport because now the pit stop is all about speed. It used to be about changing the wheels and waiting for the fuel to go in, whereas now we're just trying to change four wheels as quickly as we can. And in order to do that you have to analyse what's going on. So another CSC system we use is Pit Stop Analysis whereby we film each pit stop – and I’m not just talking about the race but the many hundreds if not thousands that are done in practice. Each one is filmed and analysed.

We can look at the time it takes for each person to put a wheel on, how long it takes for the jacks to go on, how long it takes for the jacks to come out and how long it takes for the driver to react to the signal to go. So in that way we can look at things in great detail and see where we've put our effort in to make things better. And to me that's a lot of what IT is all about; it's about understanding where to put in your effort and resources to try and improve your overall performance.” Symonds concluded: “The world of Formula One may sound easy; trundling off to the track, coming back and drinking champagne, but it's not quite like that. There's an awful lot more to it, believe me.” n

Another major focus for Symonds and the Marussia team is pit stops. “I think pit stops are one of the great bits of Formula One because it's a time when everyone contributes,” he remarked. “It's not just about the driver, it's not just about the

Marussia F1 at a glance Marussia F1, based in Banbury in Oxfordshire, is a trading name of Manor Grand Prix Racing Ltd., a subsidiary of Russian sports car manufacturer Marussia Motors. In 2009 Manor Grand Prix was awarded a F1 entry for the 2010 season, as a tie-up between Manor Motorsport and Wirth Research. The team became Virgin Racing, following Virgin Group’s purchase of the title sponsorship rights. Then in late 2010, after Marussia had obtained a controlling stake, the team was renamed Marussia Virgin Racing. During 2011 Marussia severed ties with Wirth Research and teamed up with McLaren prior to the 2012 F1 season. During 2011 the team re-located to its current site in Banbury from its previous premises in Dinnington, Yorkshire, and changed its name for the 2012 season from Virgin to Marussia. On 5 March 2012 Marussia celebrated the unveiling of its new MR01 at Silverstone.

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Special report

Workforce Management

People power Manufacturing & Logistics IT spoke with a number of leading spokespeople from the Workforce Management solutions community about current trends, recent developments and possible future innovations within a technology world dedicated to facilitating greater staff efficiencies. ith many organisations

W

more effectively using the labour a company

WFM was a ‘big brother’ tool to make

regularly declaring that their

has and not having labour proportionally

labourers’ life miserable.”

workforce is their greatest

growing as the business grows. “A 10 per cent

asset, it is hardly surprising

improvement in labour productivity, which is not

Jonathan Orme. sales operations & marketing

that IT systems able to

unreasonable expectation, can either allow a

manager at Exel Computer Systems, considers

bring about greater efficiencies in staff

company to run today’s business with 10 per

that arguably one of the key developments

management are becoming increasingly

cent lower labour costs or grow the business

within the WFM space is the growth in solutions

popular. The systems in question come in

10 per cent or more without adding labour,” he

that help companies deal with managing

many forms – tools to better schedule

said. “Both are strong objectives. I will say

workforces that are increasingly mobile. He

workforce capacity in the factory, systems that

however that I have personally seen few

comments: “Field Service Management

look to optimise the activities of field service

instances where Workforce Management was

solutions especially need to reflect the reality

personnel during goods distribution or

used to slash the work force by 10 per cent. I

that a mobile workforce needs access to the

solutions mainly geared to ensuring staff simply

have seen few layoffs directly linked to a

very latest, real-time information in order to

adhere to the right shift timetables. And many

Workforce Management project. More typically

deliver the best, not just for the customer but

of these systems are to be found as just one

what happens is attrition takes care of any

also for the company. Integrating this with

part of a wider solution suite aimed not just at

excess and the WFM allows the company to

sophisticated workflow, intelligent automated

improving workforce activities but also a host of

add more people for, say, seasonal peaks like

worker/job scheduling, time and stock

other production or logistics processes into the

the holiday season in retail.”

management and including real-time links with back-office business management systems

bargain.

Klappich also points out that Gartner has seen

joins up a company’s ability to put the needs of

So to begin, let’s survey some of the current

WFM expand beyond its traditional focus area

its customers first like never before.” James

central technology trends and general

in warehouse management. “We see large

Hannay, managing director of Schad, believes

discussion points within the Workforce

growth in retail stores (e.g. RedPrairie’s

one key current trend is for wider deployment

Management space. Dwight Klappich, vice

solution) and now more transportation fleet

of mobile devices, providing access to

president of research at Gartner, makes the

operations,” he said. Klappich added that

information ‘on the go’ with real-time

point that labour is a significant cost for many

WFM has historically focused on execution

connectivity to operational and business

supply chain organisations and labour

(Time & Attendance) and reporting, and less

systems. He also sees a desire for more

productivity is a major contributor to improved

on the planning and optimisation of the work

accurate and timely management information

performance. “For brand owner companies

force. “While these remain important we now

and the replacement of paper-based

labour is often the third highest cost behind

see more innovation and investment around

processes with purpose designed mobile

inventory and transportation,” he states. “Many

forward planning (i.e. what labour is needed

systems.

organisations have focused most of their

when, where, and doing what),” he remarked.

attention on inventory for the last decade and

“While reporting remains a key aspect of these

Mike Novels, chairman & managing director of

with rising freight costs transportation more

systems, being able to make sure I have the

Preactor International, observes that within

recently. The next target area is labour.”

right labour in the right place and the right time

manufacturing and other sectors many

to support the needs of the business is a

companies need to manage different people

However, according to Klappich, the focus is

valuable use of these tools. This focus will also

with different skill sets, required at different

not slashing labour, though this has been a

mitigate some of the backlash we have seen

times and in a particular sequence. Added to

fear of workers and unions; it is rather about

from labour unions who have long felt that

this, says Novels, is the fact that there are often

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complex rules as to who can work when and where, and for how long. He explains that Preactor offers a standard configuration, multiconstraint system that allows companies not only to manage machines as the primary constraint but also the operators as additional constraints. Novels points out that these operators might have many different skill sets, so, with this in mind, Preactor can allocate a member of staff from a specific team or resource skill group for particular tasks during particular time slots.

Stephen Szikora, IT director at NFT, believes the current generation of Workforce Management enables businesses to identify performance in a far better way than simple productivity rates. He maintains that work

have been used in the field for many years, this

out-dated, but it also increases the flexibility

content and its impact benefit end users in two

choice improves employee satisfaction

when using contracted resources. “In the past,

ways. “First, it can be used to allocate work in

because they are using devices which they

the service business would typically mandate

a fairer manner,” he said. “Secondly, when

prefer, know, and are most comfortable with.”

the mobile device(s) that the contractors would need to use,” he said. “In today’s BYOD

analysing the work content data its effects can

environment, however, this stipulation is

be clearly demonstrated, ensuring fairer treatment all round.” Szikora adds that with the

Increased flexibility

negated. Contractors can use whichever

advent of WFM companies can see that the

However, adds Hill, these are not the only

device they choose, so long as it enables them

poorer performing pickers in productivity terms

benefits. “Importantly, this drives additional

to perform their role by using the Apps

can actually be the best performers when

productivity,” he remarked. “Often the device

required and accessing the right data. Not only

looked at performance through work content

that they are allocated by their company

does this increase choice and flexibility but it

metrics. “A simple example would be picking a

cannot perform many of the tasks that we now

also reduces costs all round.”

case of yoghurt versus a joint of ham,” he said.

take for granted, and cannot use Apps that

“Both would be ‘pick 1 unit’ but the labour

further increase productivity.” Hill points out

content is vastly different.”

that BYOD can get around this without the

Main drivers

need for the company to recall, reinvest, and

So what are some of the key drivers for the

Stewart Hill, director of product marketing at

redeploy potentially hundreds or thousands of

trends and developments cited above?

ClickSoftware, considers the topic of Workforce

new devices. Additionally, he explains that the

Klappich reflects that labour is expensive, and

Management from the perspective of device

company’s data can be accessed and

that while in an economic downturn it is

trends that can also produce greater user

interacted with on multiple devices. “Let’s say

plentiful this is not always the case.

efficiencies. He makes the point that there are

that a field engineer is issued with a laptop and

“Companies would like to improve retention of

currently a number of key talking points within

needs to carry this hundreds of metres into a

good people and not have to hire as many

the Mobile Workforce Management industry,

field; which is both heavy and cumbersome. By

temporary workers as they have in the past,”

one of the most

bringing their own smartphone they can often

said Klappich. Also, he adds that in times of

common being Bring

perform the same task in the field and more

turbulence productivity can drop and WFM

Your Own Device

without needing

(BYOD). “BYOD is

to carry their

transforming the way

laptop. The fact

data is received and

that two devices

acted upon in the

can access and

field,” said Hill. “Field

use the same data without conflict is of

makes the point that many of the tools can

resources use the

significance and a benefit that drives

report on notable deviations between planned

device of their

productivity and employee satisfaction.” Hills

and actual work by worker. “This can be used

choosing in

maintains that, for the company, not only does

to suggest improved training or other process

performing their role.

this mean that a BYOD policy reduces its

improvement activities,” he said. In Orme’s

While mobile devices

investment in devices that can quickly become

view, recent WFM developments have been

Mike Novels, chairman & managing director

www.logisticsit.com

tools can be

“

…there are often complex rules as to who can work when and where, and for how long.”

– Mike Novels, Preactor International.

good ways to help keep productivity high.

For example, he

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Workforce Management

driven by the symbiotic relationship between

applications should be any different to

considers that

business need and technology capability.

consumer applications. At Kronos, we place a

technology itself is

“Mobile communications technology has

lot of emphasis on ease of use.”

rarely sufficient, therefore user

undergone tremendous development in the past decade,” he said, “which in turn has

Then there is the second key area cited by

adoption is also

allowed workforce management solutions to

Macpherson; guided decisions. “By this, I

required. “In this

take advantage of this. And, as customer

mean our Workforce Management system will

area, adoption,

expectations increase both businesses and the

not only highlight issues in the business in real

acceptance and

vendor community need to respond; after all,

time – for example staffing challenges or

passion are

customer satisfaction in these challenging

absence issues – but the system will go on to

prevalent,” he said.

times must remain the priority.”

suggest what action should be taken by the

“Users like their

manager to correct that issue or mitigate its

smart devices and

Simon Macpherson, senior director, operations

effects,” he said. “This may involve moving

are very attached to

EMEA at Kronos, comments that the Kronos

staff or skills from one area of a warehouse or

them. Even if a

Jonathan Orme, sales operations & marketing manager

BYOD policy does not officially exist, such

“

Field Service Management solutions especially need to reflect the reality that a mobile workforce needs access to the very latest, real-time information in order to deliver the best, not just for the customer but also for the company.”

– Jonathan Orme, Exel Computer Systems.

passion is still making mobile field resources find a way to use their devices instead of the company-issued (and less attractive) alternative. This is a change that is therefore being driven by the field and not by the corporate decision-makers.”

development strategy is always focused on

manufacturing plant to another to even out the

three key areas. These are intuitive ease of

work flow, or identifying a training requirement

use, guided decisions and mobile. “The first,

or performance issue for a particular

The systems

intuitive ease of use, is very much driven by

department or member of staff.”

And what about the actual WFM-related

expectations set by consumer applications,” he

solutions our commentators either use or

said. “The workforce of today expects business

Mobile is the third area of focus for Kronos.

develop? In addition to the well-respected

applications to be intuitive and easy to use, set

This, says Macpherson, provides native

workforce capabilities of Exel’s EFACS E/8 ERP

by the standards of consumer applications

applications through the app stores to enable

system such as mobile CRM and Sales Force

from Apple, Facebook and Google for

staff to carry out key functions on a mobile

Automation, Orme comments that the greatest

example. It is no longer acceptable to have a

device. “For example, employees can track

area of interest is in Exel’s Eagle Field Service

complex user interface that requires lengthy

hours worked, request annual leave, and

Management solution. “This is a complete field

training and a huge user manual. There is

transfer between jobs, staying on the shop

service solution, incorporating advanced

absolutely no reason why business

floor or from remote work locations,” he said.

engineer scheduling and optimisation, device-

“Managers can use a mobile device to monitor

independent mobile functionality and fully

operations on the production line for example,

integrated workflow and customisation toolkits to

respond to employee requests and resolving

future-proof a customer’s investment,” he said.

exceptions. Try it for yourself from the apps stores of Blackberry, Apple and Android.”

Orme then gave an example of how a typical

Szikora believes on the key drivers for change

mobile worker, a sales engineer, needs to

is the requirement for leaner, more core

interact with a customer. “It is not enough to

processes. “The focus on this has enabled

just access activity data in real-time,” he said.

solutions to be designed to forecast, manage

“You need the ability to constantly update,

and monitor against standards,” he said.

recreate and edit jobs in relation to each and

Hannay also recognises the need for leaner,

every customer. And, because the flow of data

more efficient and speedier processes,

is 2-way the moment an order or quotation is

pointing to the wider acceptance and

confirmed with the customer the back-office

availability of mobile technology and enhanced

system needs to be updated, thereby ensuring

communications and network infrastructure.

the next request for information has access to the very latest data.” Orme added that the time

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For Hill, the revolution in smart mobile devices,

savings should not be underestimated. “The

including tablets and phones, is the catalyst

preparation involved prior to every sales visit

behind changes in WFM. However, he

can often be extensive,” he remarked. “Not

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only might a sales rep have to familiarise him/herself each time with the customer’s history, credit details and current service issues, he/she would also have to update their knowledge of any changes to the customer internal hierarchy. Even so, no one can anticipate every question that may be put to them. But make all of that information accessible in real time, while the rep is with the customer, then the business has every opportunity to boost productivity, accelerate sales cycles and increase customer satisfaction. Furthermore, there is no need for the rep to be loaded with brochures and factsheets as catalogues can be viewed on-screen via a document management system; and even product demos can be provided.” different site working on a different system. And

access information in real time on a mobile

In addition to the functional robustness of

these different groups of people might be

device, both the engineer’s planned and

Eagle, Orme considers that one of its main

making the same mistakes time and time again

unplanned tasks can be carried out more

USPs is the strength of its integration with a

and not learning from their inefficiencies. If

efficiently and much quicker,” he said. In

sophisticated back-office management system

people from different locations are able to

essence, Hannay explained that Extend 7000

that is the product of over 25 years’ industry

share their knowledge and experience by

facilitates a holistic approach that considers all

experience. “Customers need systems and

putting valuable information into the collective

aspects of maintenance engineering mobile

solutions that operate seamlessly and fault free

pot then the quality of the stored data will

requirements for both unscheduled and

across the entire enterprise and utilise the

improve, and so will the performance of the

planned activities. In terms of core USPs,

same shared data,” he said. “Disparate

workforce.”

Hannay cites these as independence from other software vendors and ability to integrate

systems tend to lead to points of weakness in system interfaces and data ownership issues,

Hannay added that by being able to access

with most commonly used automation, control

which leads to a reduced lack of confidence.”

the right information almost immediately

and maintenance systems such as IBM

engineers can improve their response times

Maximo, SAP PM, Siemens, Mitsubishi, WinCC,

Hannay explained that a key benefit of Schad’s

when, say, a piece of equipment breaks down.

InTouch.

SCADA-based Extend 7000 mobile middleware

“What we are finding is organisations are

application is that it is able to route information

increasingly keen to drill down to a more

Szikora comments that in NFT’s market, 3PL

between a central automated/maintenance

detailed level to determine why things go

time-critical chilled logistics, the company needs to be able to plan and react to changes

“

Companies would like to improve retention of good people and not have to hire as many temporary workers as they have in the past.”

– Dwight Klappich, Gartner.

very quickly without being integrated upstream with hundreds of suppliers. “Our main focus is to integrate tightly with available forecasts, operational systems and deliver centralised

system and mobile devices. He made the point

wrong, when they go wrong and what can be

views to manage

that by using such a system the right

done in order to ensure downtime is

throughput, service

information can be allocated to the right

minimised,” he said. “Engineers need to know

and quality on a near

engineers according to existing workloads and

not only how to solve problems but also how to

live basis,” he

their availability; and all this is achievable in

improve their response times.” He added that

explained, adding

real time on their mobile device wherever they

by being able to access all the required

that in transport NFT

are working on the shopfloor. Hannay then

information via a single platform on a mobile

achieves this through

considered the benefits of putting in place

device an engineer can then make decisions

a Microlise telematics

what he refers to as an enterprise-wide asset

much quicker, know precisely the right store to

solution. Szikora also

management strategy. “An organisation might

go to in order to access the right part, and not

explained that NFT is

have a group of engineers at one location

have to spend time trying to find the right

currently in the

working on a particular type of system, and it

paper-based information (manual, electronic

process of installing a

might have another group of engineers on a

diagram, etc.) for the job. “By being able to

new Workforce

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Stewart Hill, director of product marketing

Workforce Management

Management system

the pick rates of our individual pickers,” he

scheduling’ which incorporates customer

at its Daventry

said. “Therefore it can predict hour-by-hour

demand forecasting, long- and short-term

warehouse. This is a

what shift patterns we will need in order to load

capacity planning, shift planning, real-time

rule-based solution

the orders onto the trucks and distribute to our

scheduling, mobility and location-based

which coordinates

customers. What we don't want to do is flood

services, and analytics, as well as on-going

skills, forecasts,

the warehouse with people. However if we

communication with the consumer on the

availability, Working

don't deploy enough people then the job

expected arrival time of the field resource. “We

Time Directive

doesn’t get done. And the work mix is very

call this ‘service chain optimisation’,” he said,

regulations and actual

different from customer to customer. For

adding: “You cannot expect to be able to

demand. “This will

example, for one customer we might be

deliver great service against a given demand

enable colleagues to

picking large joints of ham for one customer

without having the right quantity and profile of

share fairly in the

and packs of yoghurt deserts for another.

people available to be able to deliver this when

opportunities that

Resource DLM knows the best people to

required. If your workload peaks during certain

arise whilst ensuring the business operates at its most efficient,” he said, adding: “Previously we were running the business using various operational and planning systems and then realised there had to be a smarter way of doing this. So we went to the market and discovered a product by Eleventeenth called

“

You cannot expect to be able to deliver great service against a given demand without having the right quantity and profile of people available to be able to deliver this when required. If your workload peaks during certain hours, then you need more people available and fewer during the quiet periods.”

– Stewart Hill, ClickSoftware.

Resource DLM. We have had some good success during the pilot stage and are

undertake different tasks. It can point out

hours, then you need more people available

currently moving towards full deployment.

someone who has proved very efficient at

and fewer during the quiet periods.” This, he

Resource DLM provides us with an ideal

picking the ham or someone who is better at

says, is one of the key benefits of

functionality mix. It allows us to work with

picking smaller items in larger volumes etc.”

ClickSoftware’s ‘continuous planning and

forecasts and real orders and also allows us to

Szikora added that another benefit is that

scheduling’ concept.

work with historical transaction data.”

Resource DLM is being used as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, so there is no

Novels explains that Preactor offers workforce

Szikora also point out that the solution has a

physical deployment involved. “It will be run as

management functionality as part of its wider

very compressive database and understands

a single version, so we will benefit from all the

Advanced Planning & Scheduling and Finite

NFT’s workforce resources and skills. It also

latest upgrades as well,” he said.

Capacity Scheduling application offerings.

Novels points out that one highly beneficial

understands calendars, pay rates, wages and shift rotors. “Additionally, the system knows

According to Hill, one of the core USPs of

aspect of this functionality is in Preactor’s ability

which customers we’re picking for at any one

ClickSoftware is the company’s patented

to better schedule staff with different skillsets in

time and knows the carton sizes involved and

concept of ‘continuous planning and

order to ensure they are deployed as efficiently as possible. He cites Preactor customer helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter as just one example of this process in action. As well as spending a great deal of time on changeovers on machines and suffering a number of other production-related constraints, Eurocopter also needed to reduce unnecessary movement of staff in the workshop and improve the scheduling of staff activity – ensuring the right people were in the right place at the right time.

Novels explained that Eurocopter started to use spreadsheets to manage these tasks, but quickly realised that the application in question quickly reached the limits of its capacity.

Preactor then became Eurocopter’s scheduling solution of choice and has proved invaluable for a number of production requirements; including the management and assignment of

14

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operators with specific skill sets for certain tasks. With the help of Preactor, the company divided the shop in to areas or departments.

Then, taking into account the skills of James Hannay, managing director

the operators, it assigned them to specific areas and

specific tasks in the schedule in order to reduce unnecessary movement from one area to another.

Macpherson explains that within its application Kronos focuses on four key areas: planning, deployment, execution and analysis. And, he adds, inevitably Kronos is often integrated with

that this data shows exactly what is going on in

management system, fully integrated with

ERP, HR, Supply Chain etc. Indeed within the

the warehouse or manufacturing plant in real

payroll and ERP solutions and designed to

workforce central suite is a sophisticated

time – and, when analysed, it can highlight

drive significant efficiency and real-time data

integration engine. “In planning phase we often

bottle necks and quality issues in time to make

visibility improvements across the organisation.

use sophisticated algorithms to forecast the

a difference. Macpherson also explained that

According to Macpherson, key benefits for

requirements of the business and then feed

over time a vast amount of data is captured at

Hozelock have included a 2 per cent increase

actual data back into the forecasting engine to

a very granular level. “And this can be sliced

in assembly productivity; detailed KPI data on

adapt the algorithm to make it more detailed

and diced with our BI tool to identify best

labour utilisation and efficiency – by company,

and accurate going forward,” Macpherson pointed out. “We capture employees’ skills, competencies, preferences and availability and use

product, line and employee; and 100

“

The increasing capability of ERP systems has made a significant impact in this market space.”

– James Hannay, Schad.

per cent reconciliation of payroll to production hours. Additionally, there have reportedly been zero delays in approving overtime – down from five

the information together with rules

days; nine man-days saved per week on data

around working time, breaks and holidays in the complex area of employee deployment.

practice and feed back into future planning,”

entry, chasing and approvals; 0.5 man day per

This provides the organisation with the right

he said. “For example areas of high

week released back to HR as a result of

people, in the right place, at the right time – in

productivity, low overtime, low inactive time and

reduced data entry requirements; and the

all areas, from goods in and the production line

low scrap can all be analysed to see how staff

elimination of payroll queries through

right through to enough drivers making

might be better deployed around the

automated time and attendance tracking.

deliveries.”

business.”

Macpherson added that the execution phase is

As an example of the benefits Kronos has

And have ways of best integrating Workforce

often neglected but captures what is

afforded a particular customer within the

Management-related solutions with other

happening with a company’s labour in real

manufacturing space, Macpherson cites

systems developed to any notable degree over

time. He explains that a whole host of data can

Hozelock. He explains that Hozelock is an

the recent past? Orme observes that

be accessed through managers’ dashboards:

example of a company very much driven by

integration possibilities have improved and that

from the basic recording of people coming and

seasonal and day-to-day changes in the

some vendors have started to add additional

going, working hours, and identifying labour

weather and which needs to forecast

modules or areas of functionality to older

shortages, to the sophisticated capturing of

production at a moment’s notice; producing

systems. However, he adds that in many cases

what is being manufactured on a production

component parts in the UK in a just-in-time

this has businesses being faced with the

line, what work has to be scrapped, through to

basis. Hozelock uses Kronos to monitor all

possibility of the easier linking of disparate

what is being picked and packed in the

labour-related activities on the production line

systems that may vary markedly in design and

warehouse and how performance compares to

and has seen some great benefits. The solution

execution. “For example, your underlying ERP

pre-set labour standards. Macpherson states

implemented was a real-time workforce

system may have been designed and built at a

Integration

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Workforce Management

time when what is

“For example, in a traditional environment a

perspective this isn’t really having a material

possible with a

company would need industrial engineers

difference. “On the whole the level of demand

modern Field Service

(either their own or a consultant’s) to conduct

is the same; it’s just that Cloud gives another

Management solution

time studies to capture labour standards. Now

option,” he said. “Rarely do you find a brand

would have seemed

the system could capture actual performance

new enterprise-level customer who is suddenly

like something from a

for, say, hundreds of transactions and then

showing interest because of the Cloud. They

science fiction film,” remarked Orme.

“Integrated modern Stephen Szikora, IT director

solutions that are designed and built to meet the challenges

“

[With SaaS] I don't have to store the application in my computer room and I don't have to back it up. So effectively I'm saving on IT people and I'm not making any capital investment in a pair of servers.”

– Stephen Szikora, NFT.

of today and tomorrow will always

analyse this to determine what the average or

may however show renewed interest by now

deliver better results.

mean might be; which is then used as the

considering and comparing Cloud versus on-

Plus, you get all the additional benefits from

starting standard. This makes it much easier to

premises alternatives. I would say that Cloud is

dealing with just one supplier.”

implement for less complex environments.”

an added stimulus.”

In the SMB market however, Hills observes that

Klappich considers that WFM is mature in Warehouse Management (WMS) but less so in

The SaaS effect

Cloud is having more momentum because it is

areas such as transportation. He adds that it is

And returning to the SaaS theme, what do our

making Mobile Workforce solutions more

also growing strength in retail for store level

commentators think about the current state of

affordable. “In the past, smaller organisations

WFM. However, he makes the point that even in

play regarding this deployment model within

may have invested in cheaper and less

WMS WFM was historically relegated to the

the Workforce Management space? Szikora

sophisticated solutions simply based on costs,”

high end of the market (e.g., more than 250

makes the point that NFT has increasingly

he remarked. “Now, with the ability to fund via

employees in warehouse) because of the cost

witnessed is a trend towards SaaS solutions.

operating expenditure and having the

and time to implement and support engineered

“SaaS was a major criterion in our partner

management and maintenance of the IT

labour standards based WFM. “We have seen a

selection as we wish to share in all software

environment handled by the vendor, this

couple vendors looking to exploit the WMS’ task

development going forward and not worry

removes any material financial outlays and

management capabilities to allow the system to

about deployment,” he said. Szikora again

offers a sophisticated optimisation and mobile

capture a lot of the data needed to start

referenced the benefits of NFT’s SaaS-based

solution through recurring monthly payments

monitoring labour productivity,” said Klappich.

Resource DLM deployment: “I don't have to

only. The Cloud is potentially making great

store the application in my computer room and

technology available to the mass market.”

I don't have to back it up. So effectively I'm saving on IT people and I'm not making any

Macpherson reflects that there was some initial

capital investment in a pair of servers. Of

reluctance in the area of Workforce

course, the system needs to be bullet proof so

Management to consider the Cloud, due in

once the pilot stage has been completed and

part to concerns over the security of hosting

we get into full production then if we had

HR data. “This is no longer an issue and the

chosen to deploy an on-premise model we

Cloud is now widely accepted and recognised

would have to invest in mirrored servers and

as a viable way forward,” he said. “At Kronos,

mirrored disks etc. to make sure the system

we are making the options and choice as wide

was 100 per cent available. However, by

as possible for our clients so that they can

sharing all of the benefits of the system through

have the solution to suit their business. We

the Cloud we have none of these on-premise

have broken up the component parts and offer

hardware and software commitments.”

a choice as to how the system is acquired, perpetual licence or subscription; where it is

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Hill also recognises the growth in Cloud-based

hosted on your site or by Kronos; and who

solutions. “Mobile Workforce Management in

manages it. Kronos can manage just the

the Cloud is generating additional interest from

technical infrastructure or, if the client prefers to

potential buyers and attracting a small number

host the system in house but use us to provide

of new competitors into the market,” he said.

the IT skills to manage it, we can do so from

However, Hills adds that from a demand

the client environment. It is that flexible.”

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essential. In fact, integration should be

engineers, home or in the office – will be

Standalone or integrated?

considered a given, invisible and seamless. It

updating information as and when it happens.

Is there still a case for standalone WFM or are

should not be feared as the pain-point that it

“When this occurs you will get many more

there now more benefits to be had within a

once was.”

companies that genuinely run on a companywide, real-time basis,” he said. “This will

wider integrated model? Szikora believes a standalone case exists through the need for

According to Macpherson, Kronos’ experience

expose any weaknesses in the underlying

phasing and differing return on investment

shows that an organisation should always go

business management systems and we will

measurements. “Not all operational solutions

for a specialist in a particular area. “So for a

see increasing numbers of companies moving

(legacy) can be integrated,” he points out.

Workforce Management system, go to a

to a fully integrated system to remain

“Performance issues can arise when tightly

Workforce Management specialist,” he said,

competitive.”

integrating Workforce Management with live

adding: “When choosing a supplier make sure

systems.” Similarly, he considers that

they have expertise in your business sector,

Hill makes the point that, in the past, Time &

synchronisation issues can occur when

and do make sure you get reference visits in

Attendance, Capacity Planning, Shift Planning,

reporting and feeding from operational

your industry. Go and meet people who are

Field Service Scheduling & Optimisation and

solutions. “This is also impacted by having

actually using the system and listen to what

Mobility Solutions were provided by different

centralised versus local solutions,” he said.

Looking at Field Service Management as a Workforce Management solution, Orme considers that for most companies the

“

[ The security of hosting HR data] is no longer an issue and the Cloud is

now widely accepted and recognised as a viable way forward.”

– Simon Macpherson, Kronos.

information used within the FSM system is information that already exists and is being

they have to say. Ensure a suitable range of

vendors. “Today, the market is less fragmented

used elsewhere in the company. “Decisions

plug-and-play data collection is available.

where the best Mobile Workforce Management

made by mobile workers also have direct

Finally, ensure the solution you work with is

vendors will provide multiple solutions such as

impact on other areas of the business,” he

able to integrate with all the systems you have,

Scheduling & Optimisation, with a robust and

said, “and unless the combined systems within

for example major Supply Chain systems,

flexible mobile solution,” he said. “But Mobile

a business can act quickly, smoothly and

Materials Planning systems, ERP, HR and

Workforce Management does not need to

securely, you are not operating to your

Payroll.”

remain disparate from Workforce Management in general and this is where one of the

maximum potential. This means you’re not as

developments of the future will exist: the ability

competitive as you ought to be. An integrated

to offer enterprise-wide Scheduling &

look at how the business as a whole currently

Workforce Management of the future

works and ought ideally to work.”

And might be the next key developments to

one vendor.” Hannay foresees further

look out for within the world of Workforce

encroachment by ERP systems working

In Hill’s view, standalone systems create data

Management-related solutions over the next

alongside specialised solutions targeting

silos and inconsistencies. “They are inefficient

year or two? Szikora believes that workforce

specific user communities with rich process

and limit any productivity, efficiency, and cost

screening and verification will be the most

oriented functionality such as Schad’s Extend

improvements,” he said. “It is therefore

significant development that will impact the UK

7000; a mobile middleware application that

essential that service businesses seek a

market over the coming years as WFM

routes information between the central

solution that is part of a wider suite. This does

becomes more integrated with Employee

automated/maintenance systems and mobile

not mean that they

Management solutions. Macpherson

devices.

cannot seek the

anticipates that there will be more intuitive,

‘best-of-breed’ in a

easy-to-use applications, and more guidance

Orme concluded: “Companies need to keep

given discipline, on

to managers in different environments on how

their focus on the fact that WFM, like any

the contrary. But they

to best run the business. He also believes the

aspect of technology, is a means to an end

must select a

market will see increased use of mobile

and not an end in itself. And it needs to be

solution that easily

applications designed for tablets.

sensitively and intelligently implemented. Get it

approached gives you the best potential to

right and you will have an empowered

integrates into a Simon Macpherson, senior director, operations EMEA

Optimisation across the organisation and from

wider enterprise-wide

Orme considers that as mobile devices

workforce across the enterprise, freed to do

system. For this

continue to increase in power and functionality

their best as and where the business of doing

reason, integration is

and affordability, workers wherever they are

business is taking place. This can only be

an ever-improving

within a business – be it shop floor,

good news for your company, and your

discipline – it is

warehouse, mobile engineers, sales

customers.” n

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\\\ Manufacturing \\\

Success story

Exel EFACS helps Bennett Opie get it right first time, every time ennett Opie has grown from

catalyst for implementing significant changes

humble origins in 1880 to a £12

to the company’s manufacturing and he

million turnover, leading

outlines the key challenges a company like

manufacturer of quality pickles

Opies faces. “A food company like ours has 3

and preserves that are enjoyed

main considerations: forecast accuracy, stock

B

by families in the UK and across the world.

control and production. If the forecast is

The company operates a manufacturing and

wrong, you either end up making too little or

a distribution centre in Sittingbourne, Kent,

too much product. If your stock control is

and supplies to all the leading multiples and

poor, you either end up with surplus stock

materials and stock control with Opies buying

the food service sector with 75 per cent of its

which is waste or a shortfall which means you

in against contract and drawing down

production destined for the UK and the

are unable to meet your customer orders. In

according to order and demand. However, as

remainder going to Europe and beyond.

terms of production, you need to maximise

products have tight windows of availability

Whilst certain pickles are much more popular than others, Opies’ product range extends to approximately 400 SKUs. It manufactures on a 90/10 split between Make To Stock (MTS) and Make To Order (MTO) with the former

“

The combination of everyone knowing what they were doing combined with the inherent benefits of a single database-driven, fully integrated system with intelligent workflow removed data duplication and data variance errors at a stroke.”

having a typical lead time of 1-3 days and the latter between 1 to 3 weeks depending on

the efficiency of your product lines to avoid

and which are highly susceptible to

product. To meet these orders, Opies runs 4

costly downtime due to poor planning

disruption, pricing can be highly volatile.

main production lines – 2 product type

especially where lengthy changeover times

Shortages can also put acute pressure on the

specific and 2 with multiple product

are involved.”

manufacturing and production side of the

capabilities – with additional hand packing

business because failure to get each batch

capabilities when required.

right first time and the resulting waste could

Paul Fox joined Opies in 1999 and is business development director. His arrival was a

Meeting customer demand

make the vital difference between meeting customer demand or not.

Further challenges exist in the area of raw The greatest potential difficulty in terms of production comes from dealing with such a large range of product types each with different shapes and sizes of packaging.

Sequence dependent changeovers are lengthy with each line needing to be recalibrated in terms of jar size, cap type and size, filler header and label type and size.

Even allowing for the ideal of a half-day run this still represents a minimum of 4 hours changeover per week.

Worst case scenario Prior to its investment in EFACS, Opies had relied on a disconnected set of computerised and paper systems with nothing interacting with each other because nothing could. The

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Success story

\\\ Manufacturing \\\

and business knowledge Exel could pass on to Opies.

Dramatic reduction of mistakes Exel also remained on site when Opies went successfully live in June 2001 and, by doing so, was able to answer any real-life questions and provide immediate fine tuning to the system when required. Unsurprisingly the first visible benefit was the dramatic reduction of mistakes being made throughout the business. The combination of everyone knowing what they were doing combined with the inherent benefits of a single databasedriven, fully integrated system with intelligent workflow removed data duplication and data variance errors at a stroke. It also saved disjointed systems led to data duplication,

business needs and how EFACS could

considerable amounts of time which could

data variance between these duplications and

address these. This ease of use combined

then be re-invested in business process

lines of communication that were prone to

with comprehensive functionality and solid

improvement in every area. Greater accuracy

misunderstanding and error. The

value for money led to a quick decision to

of data leads directly to greater stock control

consequences were extremely serious as Fox

invest in EFACS.

and manufacturing efficiency with no worst case studies and wastage to deal with.

explains. “In the earlier worst case scenario, we’d have to scrap an entire batch which

Implementation commenced in Jan 2001 with

could feasibly leave us with a stock shortfall

senior management attending in-depth

In terms of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),

of a key ingredient and a potentially

training at Exel’s dedicated training centre

Fox simply cites an increase in right first time, a

disappointed customer.”

where they learned a much greater level of

decrease in inventory, and increase in

how the system worked and could be used.

customer service and a traceability system that

As mentioned, Fox was a catalyst for change

All other training was done on site by an Exel

allows a forward and backwards trace to be

when he arrived as then special projects

consultant over a period of 6 months. This

completed in minutes. He therefore concludes

manager in 1999 with one of his tasks being

involved hands-on training with each

very positively, “Our stock levels are always

to help move the company to a more efficient

operative covering how they would need to

right, our production and work flow is always

way of doing things. In light of this, Opies

use the system with the training system using

right. EFACS just gets it right, every time – what

approached the selection process for an

real data from Opies. One of the other key

more do you need?” n

integrated ERP solution from a different

benefits from having such regular access to

perspective to many manufacturers. Instead

an Exel consultant was the depth of system

of a very detailed wish list of system criteria, Opies knew it would need to develop a partnership with a supplier that would help show us the possibilities a modern, integrated ERP system could offer and how to make best use of these.”

Understanding business needs Exel had already impressed by providing an initial demonstration which showed EFACS to be so intuitive that it allowed Fox and others in the company to see for themselves how easy it would be to use and to set up. This was followed up by a presentation that clearly showed Exel understood Opies’

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\\\ Manufacturing \\\

Events news

8th Annual European Manufacturing Strategies Summit on the horizon empower employees.

he 8th Annual European

T

Manufacturing Strategies Summit

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Company news

Gartner IT Financial, Procurement & Asset Management Summit 2012 10-11 October, London (gartner.com/eu/itam) he must-attend event for ITAM,

with their peers and deal with the impact of

provide the most comprehensive programme.

finance and procurement

emerging technologies such as bring your

Delegates can choose from 3 dedicated

professionals, this summit creates

own device (BYOD).

tracks focused on ITAM, finance, and

T

procurement, or customise their agenda by

a unique setting that brings together three complementary

fields for the latest Gartner insights on how

visiting: gartner.com/eu/itam

Comprehensive agenda

decrease costs while increasing the value of

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Register today with priority code ITAM2ML to

IT. Focused on practical advice, delegates will

speakers – including Tim Foster, Olympic

save €300. n

learn how to better manage their IT assets,

medalist and coach, and Elaine Colliar, mind

negotiate with the biggest vendors, network

mapping international grand master – to

Gartner says Cloud adoption in Europe will trail US by at least two years uropean privacy rules, multi-country

there are ways of using Cloud more safely. While

business processes, the euro crisis

it is true that international regulations such as

and a lingering recession will

the Patriot Act will allow law enforcement

conspire to delay Cloud computing

authorities to access personal information

The EU was established to promote economic

adoption in Europe by at least two

hosted by third parties – in cases of terrorism or

and social progress and to achieve balanced

years when compared to the US, according to

severe crime, or to protect national security –

and sustainable development, through the

Gartner, Inc. Gartner considers that although

agreements like these are in place between

creation of a group of member states without

interest in the Cloud is high in Europe, the

several countries (for example, the UK's

internal barriers. The EU goes about achieving

diversity of Europe’s 44 different nations will result

Regulatory of Investigatory Powers Act) rather

this aim by setting policies and regulations which

in slow Cloud adoption in this region. Gartner

than just the US, and any legal entity will have to

are subsequently worked into the legislation of

has identified four main inhibitors for Cloud in

abide by them.

each member state. The whole process can take

E

considerable time, especially as each member

Europe over the next few years:

Diverse (and changing) data privacy regulations

The slowness and undesired effects of some EU policies

state has the sovereign power to add local

Complex B2B multi-enterprise integration and processes

legislation to whatever policy or regulation is agreed at EU level. Gartner analysts believe

Europe's diversity issues are compounded when

there are plenty of examples of this sort of delay:

Moving personal data to the Cloud, protecting it

it gets comes to running very common and

e-invoicing being one of the most recent, and the

adequately and complying with privacy laws are

intrinsically multi-enterprise processes across

use of Cloud likely to be the next.

problems that have been classic Cloud

different countries. Frequently, regulations and

inhibitors, but they can be solved. For example,

business practices in one country are

companies in Europe frequently express their

incompatible or undesirable in another, because

concern that the existence of the US Patriot Act

each country typically extends its pre-existing

of 2001 makes it undesirable or even illegal for

legislation. European B2B infrastructure

The continuing economic crisis within the

them to use cloud service providers that are

providers have turned this complexity, and their

countries using the single European currency

located or incorporated in the US (where the

ability to address it, into a business opportunity

has deep IT implications, because increasing

majority of them are) – on the basis that US

and a competitive advantage. In a fast-growing

uncertainty about the euro is causing major

entities might, under some circumstances, be

new market such as Cloud computing, diversity

investments to be put on hold. This is slowing

able to ‘look into their data’. The bottom line for

makes achieving the required critical mass more

down strategic and game changing decision

European companies is that in spite of a great

difficult and significantly slows down the

making. This inhibitor might not weigh as much

deal of inaccurate information, and single

execution of players wanting to offer Cloud

as the previous three, but it is certainly a factor

countries pushing nationalistic Cloud agendas,

services throughout Europe.

worthy of consideration. n

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The investment hold caused by the euro crisis

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P

lanning Company news

QAD acquires

DynaSys for €6.0 million AD Inc., provider of enterprise

the luxury goods

(S&OP). The memory resident architecture

software and services for

retail and

allows extremely high system performance

global manufacturing

distribution

and simulation for demand calculation for

companies, has acquired

markets,

millions of items.

Strasbourg, France-based

delivering

Q

DynaSys S.A., provider of supply chain

products that

planning software solutions, for €6.0 million

handle the

Unique capabilities

(or approximately US$7.5 million). DynaSys

QAD chairman and president, Pamela

generated revenues of approximately €5.0

Lopker, said of the acquisition: “We

million in 2011 and has approximately 40

are excited about the supply chain

employees. QAD plans to build on DynaSys’

planning capabilities that DynaSys brings to the QAD product suite, as

existing markets and further expand the penetration of n.SKEP, DynaSys’ flagship

well as the top-tier customers already using their solution.

product, into QAD’s global customers and the global supply chain planning market.

DynaSys has developed a unique

DynaSys will operate as a division of QAD. QAD expects the acquisition will add some additional revenue to the second quarter of

Pamela Lopker: “DynaSys is rich in both talent and technology, with exceptional customer commitment, so we see a strong cultural fit between the organisations.”

FY13, however, at this time, the company has no formal update to its prior financial

set of capabilities in their n.SKEP product set challenges of managing complex global

that we believe will benefit many of our global

supply chains and fluctuating customer

customers and other companies striving to

Ariel Weil, CEO of DynaSys, has been named

demand. Additionally, DynaSys targets the

improve their supply chain effectiveness.”

general manager of QAD’s DynaSys Division.

food and beverage and retail markets, where

He commented: “We are very excited to be

the ability to plan millions of items

Gordon Fleming, chief marketing officer at

joining QAD, and believe that by joining

simultaneously is critical to successful supply

QAD, added: “Partly catalysed by the current

forces we will be able to continue to serve our

chain optimisation. DynaSys also has

global economic crisis, we're seeing

existing customers, as well as expand to even

customers in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics

companies becoming more focused on better

more global markets. This is a positive move

and chemical markets, often supporting them

managing their supply chain. Many

for DynaSys, QAD, and all of our customers.

in highly regulated environments.

companies now have far more fluctuation in

guidance.

By leveraging QAD’s global footprint and

demand and more fluctuation in capacity, so

strategic focus on emerging markets, we will

DynaSys’ main solution, n.SKEP, is a fully

they have a bigger challenge in planning and

be better able to serve existing and new

integrated supply chain planning suite.

managing their space. Therefore at QAD we

customers in additional geographies. We look

n.SKEP has been built on a single coherent

wanted to augment the existing capabilities

forward to a successful future as part of QAD

architecture featuring ‘single click

we had in supply chain with capabilities that

as we work together to improve global supply

collaborative’ technology that provides the

covered more of the planning exercise. We

chain effectiveness, and help customers

different players involved in the supply chain

have also seen some companies move from

become effective enterprises.”

access to all decision elements in order to

running their S&OP cycles for the year to

commit to a demand forecast plan. n.SKEP

wanting to run S&OP cycles almost daily. So

features a memory resident planning model

we looked at the market with a view to

Integrated suite

with a common user interface metaphor

acquiring a company that had the domain

Founded in 1985, DynaSys provides an

across all functions; addresses planning

expertise in rapid real-time planning tools and

integrated suite of demand and supply chain

related to demand, distribution, production,

found that Dynasys met our requirements.”

planning solutions. DynaSys customers are

procurement and master planning; and

primarily in France and other countries in

supports a fully integrated ‘real time’

Fleming explained that what particularly

Europe. DynaSys has strong penetration in

approach to Sales & Operations Planning

attracted QAD to DynaSys was that all of

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lanning Company news

DynaSys’ planning tools sit on top of one

Lopker explained that

unified engine. Fleming continued: “The

QAD has a vision for

Fleming expanded on QAD’s Effective

complete span of their products covers

the future where every

Enterprise concept: “The Effective Enterprise

demand planning, production planning,

customer can call

is really the distillation of QAD's vision

procurement planning and distribution

themselves an

focused on helping customers to improve

planning. Then over the top of that is

Effective Enterprise,

their business efficiencies and to make their

networking and inventory optimisation. This is

with every business

business processes work in the best way they

essentially the layer that allows you to do real-

process working

can. Our definition of an effective enterprise is

time S&OP, and all of that runs in a single

at peak

one where every single business process is working at peak efficiency and is

memory-resident model.”

perfectly aligned to the strategic Fleming added that QAD will be extending

goals of that company. Of course,

the reach of DynaSys products to its global

companies can always improve process efficiency; their strategy

customers. He also pointed out that DynaSys

and goals are always changing.

opens up some adjacent markets for QAD

Nevertheless we strive in

specifically in the area of supply chain

everything we do to deliver

planning. “For example, DynaSys have had very strong penetration into luxury retail,” he explained. “Our strategy with acquisitions where they’re not purely focused on our existing core markets is first and foremost to

Gordon Fleming: “…with DynaSys’ ability to better plan how you respond to demand you can put in place a resilient process to better balance your demand against capacity, and better align this with your strategies and goals for greater efficiency.”

make sure we’re addressing our existing customers’ requirements, while also wanting to service new customers that we’ve acquired

efficiency and perfectly aligned to their

tools, services, methodologies and

and grow our presence in those markets. So

strategic goals. “This acquisition will aid in

measurements to help companies do that.

in the fullness of time QAD will take DynaSys’

making that vision a reality by adding

Measurement is important for us because if

n.SKEP product to markets such as luxury

additional strength to our current supply chain

you're going to prove the efficiency of the

retail and high-volume retail in our global

planning capabilities,” she said, adding: “In

process you need to know how efficient it is

territories.”

addition, DynaSys is rich in both talent and

and benchmark it. And with DynaSys’ ability

technology, with exceptional customer

to better plan how you respond to demand

commitment, so we see a strong cultural fit

you can put in place a resilient process to

between the organisations.”

better balance your demand against capacity,

The Effective Enterprise

and better align this with your strategies and goals for greater efficiency.”

Fleming added that DynaSys offers a technology called Single Click Collaborative.

By using Single Click Collaborative technology, each entry or ‘click’ by a user enables immediate recalculation of all parameters impacted at all supply chain levels; other collaborative users are immediately notified of the induced repercussions. By minimising the number of actions (clicks), DynaSys’ technologies are easy to use by the user who can then focus on the specialised added value representing an essential link of the global supply chain.

“With benefits such as these, we see the DynaSys – and particularly the way they will strengthen our existing supply chain planning capabilities – as a critical part of helping our customers to become an Effective Enterprise,” concluded Fleming. n

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P

lanning Success story

AK Precision increases

scheduling efficiency with Seiki Systems K Precision Ltd. is a thriving sub-

A

contracting machine shop with a reputation for using the highest quality components to achieve the right product, delivered at the

right time, for the right price. Each product, from a 1mm diameter pin through to a complex hydraulic valve body, is 100 per cent Made to Order and has to meet the most exacting quality standards. Serving a wide range of industry sectors including sub-sea, offshore, motor sport, aerospace, oil and gas exploration, the company

“Given that setup times can be anywhere from 2 to over 10 hours, it’s important to run similar products together wherever possible to minimise wasted time and to maintain the smoothness of flow. This needs to extend beyond setup times and into actual operation run times as these can range between 1 and 40 hours.” Read added: “Depending on the complexity of the set up and production of each operation, we also have to ensure that an appropriately skilled engineer is available at the right machine at the right time.”

This flexibility and complexity creates another has grown steadily throughout its 10-year history

time, with each job requiring anywhere between

key scheduling challenge – knowing what is

and now has 14 machine centres and a skilled

4 and 8 operations. Given the flexible nature of

happening where, and being able to monitor the

workforce of 20 employees. This steady growth

production capabilities within the company, each

progress of any and every operation. Production

has led to an increasingly complex set of

order can physically have many potential routes

coordinator Rebecca Dack elaborated: “It’s more

production challenges, which is why AK

through production. To complicate matters

than just visibility of what is happening and

Precision decided to invest in a specialist

further, each new order or repeat order with

where, it’s being able to see to measure the

production planning and scheduling system from

specification changes requires a new optimised

progress of each job against the schedule.”

Seiki Systems.

route to be developed from scratch.

There are a number of reasons why the actual schedule may deviate. For example, different batches of materials may turn or mill at different

At the heart of these challenges is the diverse nature of products that AK Precision

Juggling priorities

rates and even different engineers work at

manufactures. Not only do these products vary

It’s no wonder that managing director Wayne

different speeds. There can also be difficulties

considerably in physical size and complexity, but

Read describes order routing and smoothness of

setting up or issues mid-process. And for new

also orders can range from single items to

flow as one of the company’s primary scheduling

jobs requiring new operation timings, these are

batches of 10,000 that need to be called off over

challenges. “Many machines are capable of

largely intelligent estimates which by definition

a period of time. The company also receives

working on a wide variety of orders but some

carry an inherent sense of variance. Read added

multiple line orders comprising many different

orders require specific machines; which means

that AK Precision also needs to be able to factor

components, again in varying quantities. With 14

we are always having to juggle priorities.”

in other short term issues such as illness and

different machine centres, there are

Anthony Taylor is in charge of operations and

longer term considerations such as holidays; all

approximately 30 live orders in production at any

sales. He points out some further considerations:

of which impacts the production schedule and

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P

lanning Success story refining. These were all collated into a list and taken with an image of AK Precision’s data to Seiki Systems where they worked directly with Seiki's Scheduler experts to configure and fine tune the system to match the company’s exact working requirements. These changes were then applied remotely via the Internet and it wasn’t long before the first major benefits started to appear. Dack describes the impact of the improved visibility provided by the Seiki Scheduler as “massive.” She continued: “Now we could see not just every order on the schedule but how they all interacted with each other. Previously we might have made changes to the schedule to address an issue only to find out later that these were detrimental. Now we

“Now we could see not just every order on the schedule but how they all interacted with each other. Previously we might have made changes to the schedule to address an issue only to find out later that these were detrimental. Now we can make much better informed decisions, and with increased confidence.” – Rebecca Dack, AK Precision.

can make much better informed decisions, and with increased confidence.”

Real-time advantage all of which needs to be understood so that we

The ability to generate the best possible schedule

can take the best course of action for the

Understanding the business

maximising the company’s human and machine

company.

There were a number of other key

resources has brought a number of direct time

considerations, all of which were met by the Seiki

and cost savings including an increase in turnover

Prior to investing in the Seiki scheduler, AK

Systems Scheduler. These included the need to

and a 50 per cent reduction in Work in Progress. It

Precision had historically used a mixture of

be able to schedule ‘on the fly’, to carry our

has also brought a number of additional benefits,

spreadsheets and tee-cards to try and

quick and complex ‘what-if’ scenarios, and to

including highlighting where manual routings for

overcome these production scheduling

provide a high level of visibility across every

new or existing products are wrong or inefficient.

challenges. Taylor commented: “We tried a

element of the schedule. Furthermore, Seiki

And, because each machine now has an

variety of spreadsheets but they all had too

Systems had experience of integrating the

accurate work-to list (impossible before),

many variables and needed continued

solution with AK Precision’s primary Progress

operators can now see not just what job needs to

updating which often meant you were doing

business system. Read explained: “From the

be done and when, but what work is coming

nothing other than working on a spreadsheet

outset we all had a sense that Seiki understood

down the line. Another key benefit is that AK

which might turn out to be a different version

our business, and our account manager Neil

Precision is now able to compare projected and

to someone else’s.” Read pointed out that the

Saunders and the wider Seiki team felt like

actual schedules in real time.

company’s considerable ongoing growth, in

people we could work with well.” Dack added:

terms of number of machines and people as

“From the initial rapport through to the system

Looking to the future, AK Precision is aware that

well as orders, added significant pressure to

being implemented and ongoing this has proved

there is much more to come from its investment

move to a specialist solution that could handle

to be the case.”

and partnership with Seiki Systems. The

the company’s existing challenges but that

company has just installed a large screen

was also flexible enough to grow with the

A decision was therefore taken to implement the

monitor in the planning office which is used in

company. He had previous experience of a

Seiki Scheduler. This commenced in the summer

production meetings to show all those involved

number of systems, including Seiki Systems,

of 2011 and was completed by Seiki in less than

the current schedule. The next stage is to install

and commenced an initial review of solutions

a week with no impact on the day-to-day running

several screens on the production floor so that all

via the Internet in the summer of 2010. A

of the business. “They came in and did

personnel can not only see the current jobs and

number were rejected at this stage because

everything,” said Taylor, “including the interface

forthcoming jobs, but also whether a given job is

they were either too generic or lacked the

with Progress. Our only input was for training

above or behind schedule. This will enable the

power and flexibility to meet the company’s

which they also came and did on-site.”

company to do away with the paperwork and

present and future requirements. “Given the

Reflecting on going live immediately after system

potential human error associated with ‘work to’

specialist nature of our work we needed an

was implemented Read remarked: “There’s only

lists. Read concluded: “By enabling everyone to

equally specialist solution designed to work in

one way to really stress test a system and that’s

see the visibility of the schedule, they can see

a machining and engineering environment.

to start using it in the real world, which is what

the impact of what they do not just on the job

This was the one of key strengths of Seiki

we did.” This achieved the company’s aim of

they are working on, but the schedule and

Systems for us.”

identifying any areas which needed further

therefore the company as a whole.” n

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P

lanning Success story

Preactor GMPS

helps Mars shine ever brighter rom humble beginnings in 1911

rolling 20 week basis. For the US and Japan

when Frank C. Mars made his first

however we work on a Make to Order basis,

Mars candies in his Tacoma,

again over 20 weeks, but with a 4 week

Washington kitchen, Mars has

locked window when levels can’t be changed.

grown to become a global brand

And whereas orders for the UK, US and

F

with net sales of more than $30 billion across

Japan are scheduled on a weekly basis, the

six business segments. Almost 4,000 of the

EU is scheduled on a less regular basis.” All

global workforce of 70,000 work in the UK

finished products irrespective of final

manufacturing brands including Mars,

destination are routed via the company’s

Snickers, Orbit, Pedigree, Llomio, Klix and

Andover facility.

Flavia. The Mars facility at Basingstoke is responsible for manufacturing Klix cup drinks and Flavia single serve drinks and at the heart of this hugely complex scheduling challenge sits Preactor Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software and the new Preactor Graphical Master Production

number of days of the coffee being

Scheduler (GMPS).

roasted. Different suppliers have different delivery times and this

Mars Basingstoke supplies demand to other

therefore impacts the start times of

Mars business units in the US, EU and Japan,

such orders and all of these variables have to be factored into

which means that it has to manufacture a very

both our high-level and detailed scheduling.”

large amount of product across a wide range of possible variations. For example, the ‘in

Maintaining a smoothness of supply

With over 26 years’ experience at Mars,

produce an average of 400 cups per minute across a triple shift pattern which commences

Given the scale of production, scheduling this

as the company was implementing Preactor

7am on a Monday and ends 7pm on Friday.

accurately would be a challenge in and of

APS and GMPS from Preactor International.

There are 99 permutations of 33 SKUs with

itself but, as Hazelwood explains, there are

He outlined how the company used to try and

some machines being dedicated to soups,

many other factors that have to be taken into

meet the scheduling challenges. “We

others to tea etc. On the ‘single serve’ division

consideration. “We have a fixed number of

previously used a system called Schedule X

cup’ division has 6 dedicated machines that

Hazelwood was only brought into the project

there are 10 machines that produce approximately 100 units per minute across a similar range of permutations. To add to the

but this dealt with a

“

complexity, different

Preactor GMPS is driving internal behaviour change and we are definitely already seeing Lean Improvements. We have a long road ahead but there are undoubtedly big benefits in the future.”

– Paul Hazelwood, Mars.

countries require different

rolling 20 week horizon, it only dealt with 24 hour operations. The schedule used to be based on buckets of data and was viable

formulations as well as different pallet

machines running over a 3 shift period so

because more stock made it easier to adjust

sizes/amounts.

optimising sequencing is critical to

the schedule. The combination of Mars IS

maximising capacity usage. We have other

withdrawing its support for the systems and

Another key challenge lies in handling the

considerations such as product grouping and

wanting become leaner, which meant using

diverse ways that demand comes from

allergen control to take into account in order

more accurate data and reducing stock

different markets, as Paul Hazelwood, supply

to minimise changeover and clean down

levels, a better solution was called for.”

logistics manager, explained: “When dealing

times and maintain a smoothness of supply.

with UK and EU demand, we receive a

Furthermore, certain products have specific

forecast breakdown to an individual product

storage requirements. For example, our fresh

In at the deep end

level within a given time period, typically a

roasted coffee has to be packed with a given

For Mars, that solution was Preactor APS and

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P

lanning Success story

GMPS, and when Hazelwood arrived on the

within target levels across all our SKUs, taking

the pipeline has visibility of the entire pipeline

project in November 2011, various internal

into consideration our high level constraints.

and this increases confidence and trust at

decisions left him in his own words, “holding

From here we export the GMPS data into our

every level.”

the baby and thrown in at the deep end with

Preactor APS which then handles the detailed

the project.” It is a testament to Hazelwood’s

scheduling down to what needs to be done,

Looking to the future, Hazelwood is adamant

dedication, the intuitive nature of the Preactor

where and when, taking into account our

that while further ongoing refinement is called

solutions and the support of the Preactor

detailed level constraints. Once the schedule

for, “the combined benefits will be very good

team that in the 8 weeks remaining before ‘go

has been exported to Preactor, we generate

once everything is fully working”. Hence he

live’, that the system was fully developed,

an MRP report which we use to order our

concluded: “Preactor GMPS is driving internal

tested and implemented for Mars’ unique

materials.”

behaviour change and we are definitely already seeing Lean Improvements. We have

requirements. “There was a lot of hands-on

a long road ahead but there are undoubtedly

training and a large amount of scenario testing and I was essentially walked through

Lowering of stock levels

the project by the Preactor team until and

The most immediate benefit from Preactor

beyond the go-live on 20 February 2012.”

GMPS has been the lowering of stock levels

Mike Novels, Preactor International’s chairman

big benefits in the future.”

across the entire pipeline. While still too early

& managing director, added: “Preactor is very

The project is still in its early days and

to quantify the full impact of this, Hazel wood

active in the food & beverage sector, with

Hazelwood admits there is still work to do

cites the example of one particular SKU

over 150 companies using its APS solutions

given the scale of the implementation but

where stock levels have been reduced from

located across five continents. Applications

there is already a marked improvement. All

10,000 pallets down to 4000. Applied across

range from high-level demand and capacity

demand forecasts and orders are now

all SKUs this represents a very considerable

planning to detailed scheduling at the plant

received and imported into Preactor GMPS

cost saving. Because of the interlinked nature

level. Users of Preactor include : Mars, Aunt

along with the relevant sales and stock data

of the Preactor GMPS and APS solution,

Bessies, British Sugar, Cointreau, Greencore,

from which a rolling 20 week high level

where the impacts of every decision can be

Kyndal, Lindt & Sprungli, Martell & Co,

schedule is generated. Hazelwood again,

seen on everything else, Hazelwood also says

Molkerei Alois Muller, Pepsico, Premier Foods,

“GMPS looks at high level scheduling at a

that the company now works much more

Sanitarium Health Food, R Twining and

weekly level and ensures that we remain

closely, at a global level. “Anyone involved in

William Grant.” n

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Printing & Labelling

Product news

Zebra Technologies offers new ZT200 Series

Z

ebra Technologies Corporation, provider of technologies that extend real-time visibility into business operations, has announced the global release of its new ZT200 printer series, a new line of printers intended for light industrial and commercial applications. The series offers advanced printer integration capabilities and complete device management.

Market flexibility The ZT200 tabletop printers allow organisations to improve efficiency in a variety of verticals. Some of the specific uses include: • •

Increasing productivity and driving efficiency Zebra’s EMEA product manager Richard Hughes-Rowlands said of the new range: “Zebra’s ZT200 series highlights our commitment to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers by providing solutions that will increase productivity and drive efficiency. From the design to the features, these latest offerings address the pain points of our customers while providing them with a reliable platform that can be updated in the field. We are excited to offer this series of industrial printers as they are fast, easy to use, and compatible in a multitude of environments, including those with existing printers and systems.”

• •

Manufacturing – light work-in-process tracking, inventory management.

Transportation & logistics – order picking and packing, shipping and receiving, and compliance labelling.

Retail – warehouse logistics and backof-store applications.

Healthcare – specimen labelling and pharmacy labelling.

“

From the design to the features, these latest offerings

address the pain points of our customers while providing them with a reliable platform that can be updated in the field.”

– Richard Hughes-Rowlands, Zebra.

Matt Parker, market development manager at Zebra Technologies, commented: “Many manufacturers run a variety of sites across

“

Our testing of the ZT200 printer was very positive, we

particularly like the size of the new printer and the reduction in space needed to reload supplies.”

– Madhav Rao, Lulu Group.

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various regional or country markets, and a large number of them will control their requirements for labelling, printing and identification from a central location. This is made easy with the new ZT200 printer

series. If there is a need for a particular type of label format or label specification, or even to make changes to general device firmware, this can easily be managed from a central location. All this is achievable through the deployment of sophisticated software such as Zebra Enterprise Connector, which can connect all of a company’s printing devices from a central location.”

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Product news

Hughes-Rowlands added: “This is an exciting time for barcode printers and other AIDC technologies as new adopters are

Parker. “Our new range of printers can be situated in a very space-restricted environment and still be accessed and

“

…interaction with our devices is a very simple and

straightforward process; whether in terms of end users with direct access to the devices or in terms of personnel that can access the devices from back-office central locations for updating, maintaining and monitoring the software.”

Printing & Labelling demonstrates that we are constantly listening to the needs of the end user. We are also ensuring that interaction with our devices is a very simple and straightforward process; whether in terms of end users with direct access to the devices or in terms of personnel that can access the devices from back-office central locations for updating, maintaining and monitoring the software. All this equates to a simpler, more streamlined and efficient process.”

– Matt Parker, Zebra. turning to these technologies. The ZT200 answers the market need of small and medium-sized businesses interested in these technologies to increase business efficiencies.”

Able to withstand harsh environments The new line of printers fits into customers’ existing enterprises. It is also durable and able to withstand harsh environments.

Additionally, the ZT200 series helps limit ownership costs and maximises printer uptime because it is easy to connect to the network and easy to maintain without the use of tools. Moreover, the intuitive user interface simplifies the user’s learning curve for the product. Parker elaborated: “Because our new range of printers is highly user friendly and intuitive the changing of ribbons or print media requires very little training. This can be a major benefit in vertical sectors such as food & beverage where there is a high level of seasonality involved, often requiring high volumes of temporary workers during busier periods.”

The ZT200 printers also address a number of customer needs with its design, which is a smaller size to fit into crowded workspaces and which features a bi-fold door, making it easier to change the media when the printer is used in a cramped space. “For many end-user organisations space saving is a core requirement without any compromise on media or ribbon capacity, therefore facilitating fast throughput and productivity levels,” said

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serviced easily due to its size and convenient bi-fold door that ensures easy access to the device’s internal mechanisms.”

The new ZT200 series is available to customers around the world via Zebra’s strategic alliances and channel partners.

n

Parker believes one of the reasons for the growth of interest in these types of colour printers is due to their multiple uses. “They are popular for process throughput and the actual printing of labels for cartons, pallets and cases. However they are also highly suitable for other uses such as the printing of asset labels for things such as tote boxes as part of the supply chain, or even larger physical assets such as forklift trucks. With these printers users aren’t restricted by label size and format; printer flexibility is key for many SMEs.” Madhav Rao, CIO of Lulu Group, one of the largest retail chains in the Gulf region, said: “Our testing of the ZT200 printer was very positive, we particularly like the size of the new printer and the reduction in space needed to reload supplies.”

Parker concluded: “We believe the ZT200 printer series

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Printing & Labelling

Success story

No couch potato Datamax-O’Neil’s RL4 portable rugged label printer improves productivity and reduces costs at Segmüller, a major furniture store in Southern Germany.

S

egmüller has a long tradition in the furniture business. It was back in 1925 that Hans Segmüller founded his business as an artisan manufacturing upholstered furniture in the Bavarian town of Friedberg. Today, Segmüller is one of the most successful and well-known furniture stores in Southern Germany with seven locations and more than 4000 employees. The primary factor underlying the company’s strong growth is its extensive range of products that includes furnishings to match every budget. Moreover, Segmüller has always had a strong focus on good service. This includes displaying the greatest possible selection of products in its exhibition areas and delivering the correct furniture to customers as quickly as possible as well as providing helpful in-store support.

scope for efficiency gains. For example, it is very time consuming to label all products using a central stationary printer, as employees have to walk regularly between the printer and the storage bays in order to collect the printed labels. In addition, the long walk from the printer creates an unnecessary source of potential mistakes, e.g. pre-printed labels can become mixed up – resulting in frustrating labelling errors.

It was determined that a mobile printing solution could optimise the labelling process, maximise employee productivity, cut error rates and ultimately contribute to reduced costs.

These are all good reasons why Segmüller deploys portable label printers for identifying products in its warehouse and incoming

implement a modern, efficient and rugged printer system that would increase productivity and efficiency in its warehouse operations to an even higher level. The RL4 portable label printer from Datamax-O’Neil was the successful candidate and 20 of the devices were put into operation in 4 warehouse locations in combination with MC9090 mobile computers from Motorola Solutions.

Developed for use in challenging environments The RL4 is precisely the printer solution that Segmüller required. The 4-inch thermal printer from Datamax-O’Neil is one of the most rugged portable label printers on the market and was specially developed for

“

Not only our warehouse processes are more productive

Efficient warehouse processes are critical To provide this level of service while remaining profitable, it is vital for Segmüller to work productively and efficiently – and this is doubly true for warehouse processes. The process involved in labelling incoming goods offers significant

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and efficient but the employees who use the printers every day have been unanimously positive in their assessment of the RL4’s performance.”

– Gerhard Waschke, Segmüller.

goods departments and increasing the productivity of its staff. The company has been using mobile printers successfully for many years, so when the time came to replace the existing system, a team led by Segmüller’s IT manager Gerhard Waschke decided to purchase a new generation of mobile printers. The company commissioned beic Ident GmbH, a longstanding partner and supplier of tailor-made hardware and software solutions in the area of identification systems. Its task was to

use in challenging environments. It offers users maximum reliability and strength, continuing to print labels faultlessly even after serious incidents such as falling onto concrete. The downtimes and delays experienced with the previous solution have now been reduced significantly.

Moreover, the RL4 is a high performance printer with a maximum printing speed of 102 mm per second. Another key criterion specified by Segmüller was that the solution should be simple to integrate into

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Success story

to storage bays and shelves scan the EAN code on the packaging using the MC9090 from Motorola Solutions. This data is then transmitted to the portable label printer, which produces a label using the scanned information. The labels are self-adhesive so they can be attached to the goods immediately. This has a number of advantages. First, it virtually eliminates the risk of labelling errors. Secondly, it means that colleagues collecting the goods from the warehouse later for sale or dispatch will be able to find the items they need quickly.

the existing IT environment. The printer from Datamax-O’Neil met this requirement.

It offers emulations for a variety of printer languages and is compatible with Segmüller’s warehouse management software (WMS). Furthermore, DatamaxO’Neil designed the RL4 so that it can be worn easily on a belt or mounted on vehicles such as forklifts or order picking trolleys. The RL4 is also very practical and easy to operate thanks to its ergonomic design. Indeed, the labelling material can be changed with just one hand.

The RL4’s high printing speed also allows employees to produce more labels per hour. As the printouts are highly accurate and very few need to be rejected, Segmüller has also been able to further increase its productivity, improve its material consumption and therefore reduce

Process optimisation The introduction of the RL4 mobile label printer from Datamax-O’Neil has allowed Segmüller to achieve even greater efficiency gains in its warehouse processes. Employees transporting goods

20 % Faster Print Speed 44 % Faster Processing 50 % More Memory 6 1 % Lower Power Consumption

0%

your chance of finding a better printer

Printing & Labelling

costs. With a long rechargeable battery life and high material capacity, the RL4 generally does not require recharging or refilling with labelling material during a shift. Segmüller profits from both the low acquisition cost of the RL4 and its significantly lower operating costs compared to the previous solution. The primary reason for this is the printer’s rugged design.

“We are totally satisfied with the performance of the RL4 from DatamaxO’Neil, so we are convinced that installing these printers was the correct decision,” said Waschke. “Not only our warehouse processes are more productive and efficient but the employees who use the printers every day have been unanimously positive in their assessment of the RL4’s performance.” n

I-Class Mark II: We made the best better.

Datamax-O’Neil’s I-Class revolutionized the barcode printer industry with its award winning modular design, field installable options and rugged reliability. For the past several years, resellers have named the I-Class the “best channel product” in some of the industry’s most reputable independent surveys. Now we’ve raised the bar even higher, with the redesigned I-Class Mark II. Offering the fastest processor, largest memory and widest selection of communication ports available in a midrange printer, the I-Class Mark II provides lower operating costs and flawless print quality. For applications as diverse as manufacturing, transportation & logistics, food & beverage and pharmaceuticals, the I-Class Mark II will maintain its outstanding reputation for performance, reliability and value.

+33 4 75 75 63 00 www.datamax-oneil.com

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AUTOMATIC DATA CAPTURE

Product news

Box Technologies announces the next generation Motion CL910 Tablet PC ox Technologies, the UK provider

B

of customer interface technology solutions, has announced the launch of the latest ultra-mobile and durable tablet PC, the

Motion CL910. Motion’s latest generation of the CL-Series line of tablet PCs delivers optimised mobility, durability and connectivity that mobile professionals require across key vertical markets. Running Microsoft Windows and powered by the Intel Atom N2600 dual core processor, the CL910 Tablet PC is ideally suited for and seamlessly integrates with business environments.

Secure information management and data protection Featuring Intel’s new dual core processor, up to a 128GB solid state drive (SSD) and standard 2GB of RAM, the new CL910 Tablet Bluetooth 4.0 enhances peripheral device

•

processing.

10.1-inch display with capacitive two-

connectivity. In addition, Trusted Platform

finger touch and high-resolution digitiser

Module (TPM) offers secure information

pen input and Corning Gorilla Glass for

•

Durable design, built to MIL-STD-810G and IP-52 standards.

enhanced durability.

management and data protection. These enhancements help Motion to provide the

for data acquisition and transaction

Bluetooth 4.0 and a wireless SIM.

PC offers improved performance while

•

security, manageability and compatibility

Front-facing camera (3.0MP) and rear-

“Motion was recognised as a Microsoft 2012

facing Web camera (1.3MP) to support

Partner of the Year due to their focus and dedication to delivering solutions that directly

“

address real world business challenges,” said

In support of our key objective of ‘Delivering the Customer Interface through Technology’, we continue to provide mobile workforces with the most comprehensive product line available, including rugged, purposebuilt tablet PCs and productivity-enhancing accessories. These truly are serious tablet PCs for serious professionals.”

– Richard Elmes, Box Technologies.

Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp.

“With the CL910, Motion continues to offer enhanced technologies that help Microsoft business users experience the performance and productivity offered by tablet PCs tailored to business users in markets that depend on high performance mobile workforces.”

documentation, video conferencing and

demanded by users for a successful mobile

collaboration.

deployment in target vertical markets, including healthcare, field service and retail.

•

The lightweight, thin design includes:

Supported by productivityenhancing accessories and peripherals

A full complement of ports, including USB, SD Card, audio and HD video to simplify the use of industry standard

•

CL-Series SlateMate with Magnetic Stripe

Motion CL-Series Tablet PCs are available

Robust communications with optional

Reader (MSR) and Barcode Scanner

with a full complement of mobility solutions

Gobi connectivity with GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11,

(BCS), an integrated expansion solution

tailored to improve mobile workflows. The CL-

extended productivity.

•

34

peripheral solutions.

Up to seven hours of battery life* for

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MANUFACTURING

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•

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Product news

AUTOMATIC DATA CAPTURE

Series Locking Mobile Dock by RAM Mounts improves productivity and enhances portability, while the CL-Series ReadyDock by Advanced Technical Solutions (ATS) offers a unique option for charging, syncing, and securing multiple tablet PCs. Additionally, the CL-Series VESA Mounting Plate enables the tablet to be attached to many VESA-compliant mounts, offering both convenience and flexibility across computing environments.

Box Technologies at a glance

“Box Technologies is excited to announce the launch of this enhanced model in the highly

The CL910 Tablet PC comes standard with

successful Motion CL900 range,” said

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, and all

Richard Elmes, marketing manager at Box

CL910 Tablet PC customers will be eligible for

Technologies. “In support of our key objective

a Windows 8 upgrade upon its release. See

of ‘Delivering the Customer Interface through

the Motion Tablet range from Box

Technology’, we continue to provide mobile

Technologies at:

workforces with the most comprehensive

http://www.boxmobile.co.uk/products/motion-

product line available, including rugged,

computing-tablet-pcs

purpose-built tablet PCs and productivityenhancing accessories. These truly are

* Battery life based on MobileMark 2007 test

With over 20-years’ experience working in retail, hospitality, finance & banking, transport and logistics and many areas of the public sector, Box Technologies (www.boxtechnologies.com) supplies a wide range of integrated IT-based business solutions. The company reports that its success lies in its vision and delivery of systems ranging from ‘off the shelf’ products to a completely custombuilt business solution, coupled with technical excellence in implementation and deployment.

serious tablet PCs for serious professionals.”

J3500

F5v CL910

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AUTOMATIC DATA CAPTURE

Company news

Datalogic creates new global footprint in indust rial automat ion atalogic S.p.A. – total solutions

solution portfolio and expertise in transportation

applications, are now further enriched through

provider of barcode readers,

& logistics; and in Asia, where the company is

this consolidation: Accu-Sort’s products and

data collection mobile

poised to exploit the great market potential in

expertise in the design, production, integration

computers, RFID and vision

both these target markets. Furthermore, a new

and maintenance of automatic identification

systems – has fully integrated

and enlarged combined sales team will

(auto-ID) and material handling solutions and

Datalogic Automation, Accu-Sort Systems and

increase Datalogic’s presence and expand its

PPT Vision’s product and solution portfolio for

PPT Vision to form a single entity set to elevate

reach in the industrial automation sector, while

the fast-growing machine vision market,

the group’s global position in the industrial

enhancing channel capabilities to further

complement the entire industrial automation

automation market.

penetrate the market.

solutions offering.

This strategic development within Datalogic

Datalogic Group CEO, Mauro Sacchetto,

The new single entity will operate under the

Group follows the recent acquisitions of both PPT

commented: “This new evolution within the

name of Datalogic Automation, retaining the

Vision and Accu-Sort Systems, which instantly

group once more demonstrates Datalogic’s

Accu-Sort and PPT Vision brand values in key

doubled Datalogic’s presence in the industrial

commitment to a maintained growth strategy

reference markets, through four business units:

D

automation market. The integration is in line with the company’s vision to attain a global leadership in this sector, by delivering high quality, innovative products and distinct solutions.

Under the leadership of Gian Paolo Fedrigo, CEO of Datalogic Automation, the three companies and their previously separate teams are now combined to form a brand new organisation – single in purpose – which emerges as a world-class provider of products

“

This new evolution within the group once more demonstrates Datalogic’s commitment to a maintained growth strategy and significantly boosts our competitiveness. By leveraging best practices and best talents from Accu-Sort Systems, PPT Vision and the entire Datalogic Group, our customers continue to benefit from superior client relationships with one reference point for the most complete range of automatic identification solutions in the industrial automation market.”

– Mauro Sacchetto. Datalogic Group.

and solutions for material handling, traceability, inspection and detection in industrial

and significantly boosts our competitiveness.

Transportation & Logistics, Factory Automation,

automation. According to Datalogic, leveraging

By leveraging best practices and best talents

Machine Vision and Laser Marking. These will

on the resulting extended innovation

from Accu-Sort Systems, PPT Vision and the

be primarily responsible for R&D, product and

capabilities and improved operations means a

entire Datalogic Group, our customers continue

solutions development, product management,

stronger ability for the company to provide more

to benefit from superior client relationships with

industry marketing, applications and custom

valuable services, solutions and support to

one reference point for the most complete

engineering as well as second-level technical

customers.

range of automatic identification solutions in the

support.

industrial automation market.”

Underpinning these strategic management and

Expanded reach Benefits of consolidation

business development functions is a single,

the three formerly separate companies

In real terms, Datalogic Automation’s world-

by industry, market and geographic region,

combined skills to grow in selected target

class solutions for traceability, inspection and

ensuring a highly specialised customer focus in

markets: in North America, enhancing Datalogic

detection in manufacturing and logistic

order to create lasting value for Datalogic

Automation’s presence in the factory automation

processes and its wide product portfolio for

Automation’s new global footprint. n

market; in Europe, leveraging a new enlarged

shop floor and automatic warehousing

The new organisation’s goal is to capitalise on

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integrated worldwide sales operation defined

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Opinion

AUTOMATIC DATA CAPTURE

The logistics of protecting profits

By Steve Howells, EU VP merchandise visibility at Checkpoint Systems. ome were surprised when

prioritise improving the shopper experience,

The case for RFID is further strengthened by

Amazon acquired Kiva Systems

minimising out-of-stock incidents and

technological developments that are ensuring

for US$775 million earlier this

improving security.

the technology increasingly meets real

S

business needs. One example of this is high-

year. For those in the logistics Out-of-stock incidents cost far more than just

speed bulk encoding, which enables tags to

value placed on the warehouse robot system

the loss of the sale of the item. For instance,

be encoded at a distribution centre before

is a positive sign and doesn’t come as a

let’s imagine a customer walks into the shoe

being applied onto multiple items in a single

complete shock. We can certainly be

shop and asks for a certain style in a size

box at operational speed, significantly

cheered by the fact that the world’s largest

10. The shop assistant then disappears to

reducing the time needed to encode large

online retailer has recognised logistics is an

the stock room for 10 minutes, but is unable

quantities of merchandise.

area where businesses are leaking money

to find the shoes the customer has asked for.

and that significant investment can deliver

Eventually the two shop assistants locate the

excellent returns.

shoes and bring these to the customer, who

industry, however, the huge

tries them on and decides they’re too big. It’s

Making sense This faster tagging process is complemented

The wider truth we can acknowledge from this

by sophisticated tags, such as RFID full

deal is that technological developments that

colour graphic tags that combine the security

improve supply chain visibility and efficiency,

and supply chain benefits of RFID solutions

such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

that meet retailers’ branding needs. Indeed,

can play a key role in protecting retailers’

RFID can even help retailers tailor their store

bottom lines – delivering improvements all the

layout based on customers’ buying habits – if

way from the distribution centre to when the

you know a certain belt is often bought with a

product arrives on the shelf. We know that

particular pair of trousers, it makes sense to

RFID tags enable retailers to reduce out-of-

place these items closer together.

stock incidents, minimise time to shelf, improve replenishment times and significantly reduce working capital.

The foundations for the success of RFID have Steve Howells: “The foundations for the success of RFID have certainly been laid, but the real catalyst for success will be its implementation by major fashion retailers.”

certainly been laid, but the real catalyst for success will be its implementation by major fashion retailers. To some extent, this is

Improving the shopper experience

likely at this stage the potential customer will

across Europe have reduced out-of-stock

Because the technology is continually

leave the store, rather than risk having to

scenarios by up to 30 per cent, increased

developing and offers benefits in areas which

wait another 10 minutes for the size nine

sales by 5 per cent and reduced working

unquestionably affect a retailer’s bottom line –

shoes to arrive.

capital by between 10-20 per cent after

already happening. A number of retailers

such as loss prevention, supply chain visibility

introducing RFID into their operations.

and store design – we can expect it to be

Additionally, there are other difficult-to-

more widely implemented by fashion brands

measure behavioural effects resulting from

By applying ‘smart tags’ to apparel

and department stores across Europe over

out-of-stock incidents, including damage to

merchandise at the point of manufacture and

the next few years. Return on investment is

brand reputation and customer loyalty. The

reading the tags throughout the logistics

always important for any successful business

customer who leaves Store A dissatisfied may

operations and into the store, these retailers

– and particularly so in the current economic

well head to Store B and quickly find shoes

have been able to streamline their supply

climate – which is why retailers may realise

that fit perfectly. It’s likely that this experience

chain. This helps them ensure that their most

they can’t afford to overlook the benefits of

would result in the customer bypassing Store

popular lines are always in stock, available for

RFID, which can make a real difference to the

A and heading straight to Store B during

customers to try-on and purchase. n

bottom line. Now is precisely the time to

future shopping trips.

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V OICE technology

Success story

A new chapter with Voice

B

ertrams Books is the leading book supplier to retailers large and small in the UK. While distribution to traditional bookstores is still a core

competency, Bertram’s expanded their focus to supply internet retailers, schools and libraries, and – increasingly more – directly to the consumer. Bertrams’ calling card is the speed and accuracy of their distribution operation. “We’re a business that’s evolved over 40 years of continually improving our operational efficiency,” says Hugh McGill, director of IT & facilities at Bertrams. “It’s how we compete with companies that supply books directly.”

Evolving with the market With responsibility for Amazon.com shipping in the UK, France, Germany, and Ireland,

Maintaining a reputation for excellence

operation. “The thing that impressed us most about Voxware was their partnership

Bertrams deals with serious order volumes, often shipping 120,000 books a day. And

High customer service expectiations meant

approach to problem solving,” says McGill.

with Bertrams growing B2C competency,

Bertrams had to be discerning in selecting a

“We were able to get our first implementation

productivity inside the warehouse has to

Voice system. UK customers are guaranteed

up and running in three months, which we’re

keep up. “More and more now, we’re

next-day delivery, so they sought a picking

very pleased with. We enjoyed working with

shipping business-to-consumer,” says

technology that they could count on. Bertrams

them.” n

McGill. “From the Voxware system, we

ran a Voice trial in one DC, but the recognition

sought an

simply wasn’t good

improvement in productivity and that would lead us to a lower operating cost. From there, we can compete more

“

The thing that impressed us most about Voxware was their partnership approach to problem solving.”

– Hugh McGill, Bertrams.

strongly with the rest

enough. “The issue we had with the other system we trialled was

Quick facts

that background noise

Objectives

was interpreted as a spoken instruction,” says Simon Binney,

of the market.”

• •

• • •

business development manager. “With Voxware, background noise isn’t an issue at

Bertrams logistics team knew they needed to

all. From day one, the Voice system proved to

upgrade their picking technology. “We

be consistently reliable, which is vitally

wanted to bring in a Voice system for a fast,

important to maintaining our high standard of

accurate method of picking and

service to our customers.”

replenishment to replace our outdated

Strengthen cost competitiveness.

Support increasingly diverse distribution model including directto-consumer delivery.

Increase productivity.

Lower operating costs.

Handle greater order volume and diversity.

Solution • • •

Voxware 3 order picking software.

Voxware 3 replenishment software.

HX3 Voice-only wearable computers from Honeywell.

scanner-based system,” says Matt Chaplin,

Keeping operations flexible

process & operations manager. “Our previous

To maintain their competitive edge, Bertrams

Business value

system slowed our pickers and replenishers,

knows that the voice system needs to evolve

as they always had one hand tied up with a

with the business. Key to future-friendly

scanner, a pen, or a clipboard. The hands-

technology is teamwork between the Voice

• • • •

free operation is a big advantage.”

solution provider and the warehouse

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ROI goals achieved.

Productivity increase.

Decreased operating cost.

Decreased training time.

www.logisticsit.com

VOICE ROI IT’S IN THE BAG

For a major High Street retailer, Voxware delivered: ¾ Revolutionised pick accuracy ¾ Increased productivity across multiple sites ¾ Training time reduced from days to hours To learn how Voxware can streamline your warehouse operations, contact +44 (0) 1189 832 660 or see Voxware in action at www.voxware.com

The Voice Is Yours™ scan this QR code with your mobile device to learn more

Warehouse Management

n

Success story

FRoSTA cuts downtime at automated warehouse with ʻanywhere-anytimeʼ alerts visually, in a dedicated control room staffed by warehouse engineers. Should an engineer be required for a technical operation elsewhere, they were inevitably cut off from process control information the moment they left the control room. This inefficient communication resulted in significant periods of downtime, which had a negative impact on cost and productivity levels.

Now, engineers equipped with standard BlackBerry smartphones receive real-time notifications of system performance issues.

Alerts are sent immediately, directly to the appropriate member of the technical team in real-time, according to a pre-defined escalation scheme.

James Hannay: Extend 7000 enabled FroSTA to achieve its goals.

RoSTA AG, a leading German player in frozen fish and convenience foods market, operates a fully automated raw materials warehouse in Bremerhaven, staffed by 600 employees. To run its warehouse, FRoSTA has a conveyor and four ASRS (Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems), controlled by a series of Siemens SIMATIC automated process controllers designed for warehouse applications.

F

Working with Schad, FRoSTA is using Extend 7000 as part of a highly secure mobile SCADA system. Extend 7000 has been integrated directly with FRoSTA’s existing Siemens process controllers. The system uses existing Wi-Fi or GPRS infrastructure and BlackBerry smartphones to give engineers ‘anywhere-anytime’ alerts, providing a low cost, functionally rich mobile control and monitoring solution.

Prior to adopting Extend 7000 from Schad, information relating to the continuous smooth running of the warehouse would be displayed

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No more waiting for a problem to occur Extend 7000 routes specific data relating to system failure as it occurs, which means engineers can be working elsewhere within the facility and yet at the same time, be constantly observing and monitoring warehouse processes. Should a problem occur, it is immediately detected and initially investigated remotely, without the need for an engineer to be tied to the control room.

team can also communicate remotely when away from the control room, in real-time with each other, to remain updated about how issues are being resolved and by whom.

Easy implementation Since elsewhere in the business, FRoSTA had already implemented a BlackBerry server for email services, it was a natural extension to use BlackBerry mobile devices to monitor and control its automated warehouse systems.

Extend 7000 uses a system server, device manager and system manager to deliver realtime information. The system server uses FRoSTA’s wireless infrastructure to deliver messages from the Siemens automation systems onto the BlackBerrys whilst simultaneously exchanging information with the system manager.

How Extend 7000 works Extend 7000 is a middleware application which routes information between the central automated / maintenance systems and mobile devices. It applies additional logic to the users, user groups, user rights, message

“

Extend 7000 enables a mobile dialogue between our plant processes and our users. We can now react considerably faster to faults and fix them.”

– Thorsten Stern, FroSTA.

Better management information With each alert, Extend 7000 creates a clear workflow informing management of issues and communicating ongoing status updates whereas previously, service employees would report to the control room to discuss disturbance information. The entire technical

filters, escalation schemes, and team workflows. Alerts and notifications, which appear in a random way on the visualisations in the control room, can be prioritised in accordance to severity and urgency and be allocated to the right engineers according to the existing workload and their availability all in real time on their Blackberry device whilst they are on the shop floor.

www.logisticsit.com

Warehouse Management

n

Success story

very small maintenance team, covering a very large area, working in very cold conditions and they were struggling to respond to unplanned failures as product throughput increased. It was important to equip the engineers with as much information as possible in order to prepare for their tasks, access that information and make decisions quickly in order to get the equipment operational in the shortest possible time. Extend 7000 enabled them to achieve these goals, which resulted in improved operational efficiency of the automation equipment, to service the demand without increasing the size of the team as well as reducing the amount of time spent by the engineers in what are very cold and difficult working conditions.” n

Thorsten Stern, head of storage techniques and facilities management at FroSTA, commented: “Extend 7000 enables a mobile dialogue between our plant processes and our users. We can now react considerably faster to faults and fix them.”

www.logisticsit.com

James Hannay, managing director of Schad, added: “Frosta wanted to reduce the amount of time it was taking to react to unplanned maintenance activities which were being generated from the automated conveyors and stacker cranes in the warehouse. There was a

Benefits at a glance • • • • •

Improved service quality.

Increased productivity.

Supports multi-tasking.

Optimised human resource utilisation.

Lower operating costs.

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Warehouse Management

n

Success story

Vanderlande Industries – the right fit for fashion logistics n the fast-moving world of fashion, flexible and cost-effective logistic solutions are vital to maximise competitive strength.

They give companies the ability to respond quickly to rapidly changing fashions, consumer demand patterns and seasonal trends.

I

Sixty per cent increase of space utilisation with automated storage and retrieval systems In fashion companies cartons are stored more and more individually in automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS). AS/RS systems not only help to maximise the efficiency in the distribution centre, they can also increase space utilization with 60 per cent.

Goods-to-man systems enable up to 1000 lines per man hour Goods–to-man systems are ideal to reach high productivity and very high customer service levels, while keeping costs down. They are especially applied for store order picking as well as for e-fulfilment. It is possible to pick up to 1000 lines per man hour with 15 minutes learning curve for new operators.

Carton storage.

Fast distribution to retail outlets

The value of expertise

Direct transshipment of products to stores on an on-demand basis, gets products to customers faster, and eliminates stock costs, material handling and personnel time.

Automated sortation systems are often used to implement fast distribution to retail outlets.

Vanderlande Industries can help companies to optimise their fashion logistics.

Vanderlande has the knowledge and expertise to address the specific issues facing fashion companies, such as: • • • •

Effective handling of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ flows.

Handle an ever larger product range.

Setting up highly responsive supply chains.

Efficient and effective e-fulfilment.

Vanderlande products and solutions for fashion companies include: • • • • •

Automated storage and retrieval systems.

Goods to man systems.

Batch picking systems.

Sortation systems (cross belt sorter, sliding shoe sorter).

Cross docking systems.

Vanderlande has automated distribution centers for many well-known fashion companies, including Nike, Urban Outfitters, Tommy Hilfiger and Zalando.

Quickstore miniload.

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Warehouse Management

Material handling system for new logistics centre of Zalando Zalando, the online provider for shoes, fashion, beauty and sports goods is building a new logistics centre in Erfurt (East Germany) and has

n

Success story

commented: “For us the construction of the new logistics centre in Erfurt is an important milestone.

The new site enables us to expand our range and at the same time serve our customers with the best possible quality in very short time.

Vanderlande is the ideal partner for this project

“

The new site enables us to expand our range and at the same time serve our customers with the best possible quality in very short time. Vanderlande is the ideal partner for this project because they combine extremely efficient and innovative products and experience in e-commerce logistics with highest quality and reliability.”

– David Schröder, myBrands Zalando eLogistics. chosen Vanderlande Industries to deliver and realize their material handling system.

In spring 2013, Europe‘s ‘largest wardrobe’ will become operational over a total area of 78,000 m². This will be one of the biggest investments for Zalando into a further successful and long-term development of the company. It will provide an optimal base in order to continue and steadily expand the rapid upward trend.

David Schröder, managing director of myBrands Zalando eLogistics GmbH & Co. KG,

because they combine extremely efficient and innovative products and experience in ecommerce logistics with highest quality and reliability.”

Vanderlande is acting as main contractor and will deliver the complete material handling system.

This comprises tote and carton handling, a shelving area, a Quickstore HDS shuttle system as well as the high performance sortation system, the Crossorter 1500. For the warehouse IT Zalando has chosen Dr. Thomas + Partner, which also had been involved in the design phase. n

Crossorter 1500 with package.

Vanderlande Industries at a glance Vanderlande Industries specialises in designing and building intelligent ITdriven material handling systems and related services, which cover the entire warehouse process, from Goods Receiving to Shipping. The company has successfully automated more than 1000 warehouses and distribution centres worldwide. Solutions include order picking/order fulfilment systems, automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS), sortation systems, conveyor systems/internal transport systems and Warehouse Management and Control Systems (WMS/WCS).

FULL SPEED AHEAD?

MEET THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE Off-shore sourcing. Shorter response times. Large, ever-changing collections. Thanks to our extensive experience in fashion, we understand the logistics challenges you face on a daily basis. Find out what we can do for you.

www.vanderlande.com

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TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT

Product news

Microlise adds

Incident Data Recorder option to its Fleet Performance solution icrolise has launched an enhancement to its telematics solution to provide an even higher level of detail to help understand driver actions in the event of a driving incident or accident. It is an unfortunate fact that most transport operations will have drivers and vehicles involved in road traffic incidents at some point. Microlise customers have fed back that many man hours can then be spent in determining liability and that it would be ideal if Microlise could capture really detailed information as to what the vehicle and, crucially, the driver had been doing in the moments leading up to an incident.

M

Responding to customers’ requirements Microlise has responded to this request by developing an application that runs on its existing telematics device, (the MTU3), which monitors on an ongoing basis the status of the vehicle 4 times a second. In the event of an incident, the Microlise system records 60 seconds of data at a very detailed level, which then allows users to understand in great detail what the vehicle and driver were doing leading up to and after the incident. These logs are created by a number of triggers: harsh

about this latest innovation. Whilst it is part of a broader portfolio of safety enhancements, we feel this takes the value Microlises’ telematics solution delivers to customers to a whole new level and represents tremendous value as all of the new functionality is software based, meaning no additional hardware costs are incurred, consequently all of Microlises’ existing and new customers can easily have access to this new solution.” DHL Supply Chain has implemented Microlise’s Fleet Performance Telematics to over 2200 of its vehicles in the UK and has delivered significant fuel & emissions reduction over the past 2 years.

Microlise has used EU guidelines on Incident Data Recording as a basis for its approach.

Accordingly, the data Microlise currently captures every quarter of a second includes: • • • • • • •

Vehicle location, speed and direction.

Accelerator position.

Braking (engine & service).

ABS status.

Clutch activation and gear selected.

Cruise control state..

Engine torque and PTO state.

“

In the event of an incident, the Microlise system records 60 seconds of data at a very detailed level, which then allows users to understand in great detail what the vehicle and driver were doing leading up to and after the incident. These logs are created by a number of triggers: harsh deceleration (no braking trigger), harsh braking and forward facing camera trigger.” deceleration (no braking trigger), harsh braking and forward facing camera trigger.

Log files are automatically transmitted over air to the Microlise Server. A ‘safety’ user can access these logs via a new web console Microlise has developed as part of the Incident Data Recorder solution. This allows the user to view the status of all monitored data in quarter-second time slices in a table, on a map and on a time line chart.

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Central part to play

Due to the Microlise range of Telematics devices having their own CANchip on board, Microlise is able to access a large volume of CANBus and OBDII data. This means that the next generation of the safety release will support even more of the Veronica II guidelines – for example: airbag, seat belt, indicators etc.

Microlise’s product strategy director, Matt Hague, commented: “Microlise are really excited

Simon Wilson, EMEA transport safety director for DHL Supply Chain, speaking at Microlise’s Transport Conference in May 2012, explained how safety was DHL’s number one transport priority and that Microlise’s range of safety module enhancements; including harsh cornering, contextual speeding, Forward Facing Camera integration and this latest Incident Data Recorder development had a central part to play in providing DHL Supply Chain with the information they needed to better manage and control transportation risks. n

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Success story

TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT

Bullet Express

turns to Smart Telematics for enhanced driver performance ullet Express, the UK logistics specialist, has invested in Smart Telematics from Navman Wireless to help promote efficient and safe driver behaviour across its fleet of 36 vehicles. Bullet Express, known for its 24hour-a-day, 365-days-a-year service, chose the Navman system after exhaustive trials found it to present highly accurate data in an easy-tointerpret format.

B

David McCutcheon, managing director of Bullet Express, commented: “After trialling multiple systems the decision was easy, I knew that with Smart Telematics the business would see the strongest return. We saw great improvements in the driver’s performance over the two week trial; the system helped them improve in all areas and we saw our drivers achieve the 85 per cent performance standard we had set.”

Bullet Express has also included Navman

Wireless’ MNav 760, an integrated navigation terminal and head up training aid, that reports real-time performance statistics to the driver.

McCutcheon believes this ‘trainer in the cab’ can help drivers continuously self-evaluate their performance and deliver significant savings: “We wanted to give our drivers the tools to improve their performance, knowing in real-time when they are underperforming helps them continually learn and enables them to take the training we provide on to the road.”

McCutcheon believes that Bullet Express will have an improved driver base as well as a return on investment (ROI) very quickly. Bullet Express also chose Smart Telematics to help with reducing fuel consumption and also to help

with minimising the company’s impact on the environment. Steve Blackburn, European Vice President, added: “We are delighted to be working with Bullet Express, their commitment to improving driver performance sets a great example and we are looking forward to developing our relationship with them over the coming years.” n

NFT – Driving Excellence in Chilled Food and Drink NFT is the UK’s market leader in chilled food and drink distribution. Its strapline ‘thinking ahead’ is underpinned by ongoing investment in technology and innovation which in turn delivers business excellence. Read more…

The Intelligent Link Our role is to provide the intelligent link between manufacturers and retailers. Our state of the art systems give customers complete transparency of

their order, from when it is picked in the depot, to when it’s delivered.

Time Critical Logistics Accuracy in the chilled food and drink sector is absolutely critical as our customers need to know the specific location of their delivery at each point of the supply chain.

Our online portal provides customers with a comprehensive and real time view of their order, including purchase orders, transport management, Microlise vehicle telematics, product database, KPIs, cost to serve and warehouse management data.

Our Efficiency Means Better Business Our state of the art systems mean that we can plan our labour resource more effectively, improving efficiency and productivity for our customers. This includes everyone from our pickers in the depot to our drivers out on the roads – who are monitored by the latest in telematics. With NFT you can be always be assured that you are receiving the most cost effective and efficient service.

Driving Excellence At NFT, technology plays a key role in driving excellence, which fuels our continued expansion. Since our latest IT development, NFT customers have enjoyed the best service levels ever and our goal is to be even better.

If you want to find out how NFT can bring your business into the modern age.

0845 481 2645 or visit www.nft.co.uk July 2012 &LOGISTICSIT Call

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TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT

Success story

Transporeon drives proved ef f iciencies for Pro cur us ith e-logistics provider Transporeon working with drinks manufacturer Bacardi across Europe, a UK link was the logical next step. Over the past year Transporeon has provided its transport assignment system to specialist 4PL provider Procurus, logistics partner for Bacardi, the largest family-owned spirits provider in the world.

Procurus has staff embedded in Bacardi operations, handling all movements around the Continent.

W

Procurus provides complete logistical supply chain management services that are highly flexible, and competetive. The company prides itself on its ability to drive savings throughout the supply chain by challenging and re-challenging every part of the process. It also regularly updates its technology to ensure its processes remain at the cutting edge.

Transporeon’s UK key account manager, Charlie Pesti, worked closely with Graeme Connor, Procurus’ business development manager, together with a number of Connor’s colleagues, to establish a 4PL solution that perfectly fitted the requirements for distributing Bacardi products around the UK. Connor inherited the plan to link with Transporeon when he took up his position at Procurus in August 2011. He found Pesti and the Transporeon team “brilliant” to work with, “always ready to leap into action when any issues arose”.

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“Transporeon went to a great deal of trouble and very much allayed any fears we might have had about the capability of a one-touch system,” said Connor. “Through the use of Transporeon, we have eliminated the vast bulk of our manual inputting, as well as many of the telephone calls made to carriers and others

Graeme Connor: Plans for further rollout.

unloading slots can be booked online. The module can also track carriers en route and enable them to quickly get on their way again after arrival. Additionally, the system will be used for monitoring and checking security information; a key requirement when moving high-value products such as alcohol. Based

“

Transporeon went to a great deal of trouble and very much allayed any fears we might have had about the capability of a one-touch system. Through the use of Transporeon, we have eliminated the vast bulk of our manual inputting, as well as many of the telephone calls made to carriers and others involved in the supply chain.”

– Graeme Connor, Procurus. involved in the supply chain. Updating the day book is now a much simple matter and errors have been greatly reduced.” Connor added that Procurus is now considering how it might extend the use of Transporeon’s services to its other operations in the UK.

Automated Transport Allocation Pesti explained that Procurus is using Transporeon’s No-Touch Order module.

According to Pesti, among the module’s many features that were particulalry attractive to Procurus was Automated Transport Allocation, based on defined criteria with no need for manual intervention.

“This frees-up transport planners to concentrate on exceptions,” he said.

Pesti continued: “Procurus is also using Transporeon’s Time Slot Management module, which ensures that loading and

on Transporeon’s 10-plus years of experience with its customers from various industries, Procurus and its carriers will benefit from reduced time, efforts, costs and increased productivity as well as reduced empty miles.”

Pesti added: “We are delighted to have Procurus as a client and to be able to demonstrate clearly the versatility of Transporeon – our ability to provide solutions across industry sectors and to adapt our solutions to meet the opportunities and challenges of each individual client. We didn’t aim to reduce costs and increase efficiency by a marginal 2 to 6 per cent; we aimed to make the work of transport planners, logistics managers and directors of Procurus worth 10 times more than before.”

Founded in Germany over 10 years ago, Transporeon is an international logistics platform combining shippers and carriers from industry and trade. It serves to both optimise and accelerate the logistics process by providing web-based solutions for electronic transport assignment, tracking and tracing and time-slot management. n

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Product news

TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT

The Everyware Cloud offers proven Cloud, M2M and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to enable clients in markets such as transportation and logistics to reach their business goals.

Eurotech simplifies

the Internet of Things with Everyware Cloud 2.0 Kreme urotech, the supplier of embedded technologies, products and systems, has launched the Everyware Cloud 2.0 platform, providing a foundation to deliver and manage M2M data within the business enterprise. The Everyware Cloud offers proven Cloud, M2M and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to enable clients in the transportation, logistics, and industrial markets to reach their business goals.

E

“The intersection of three disciplines, device development tools, Cloud services, and network infrastructure, creates an opportunity for real smart systems innovation by combining device communication infrastructure with Cloud services,” explained Glen Allmendinger, principal at Harbor Research. “Managed application software and services, like the Eurotech Everyware Cloud 2.0, will help bridge gaps in today’s systems and drive new value across many vertical industries.”

Going beyond the general benefits of Cloud computing “Enterprises need information to make better business decisions, reduce operating costs, and enable new services. With Everyware Cloud 2.0, now they have a platform to gather real-world data on demand and leverage it for their benefit,” said Marco Carrer, vice president software engineering at Eurotech. “Eurotech’s new Everyware Cloud goes beyond the general benefits of Cloud computing to collect, transport, store and analyse data from the field. The new solution will allow customers to act on their data in the most powerful, efficient way possible.”

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“At Sensuss our mission is to enhance lives through knowledge: our products detect impact levels, environmental, and personal vital signs within a body network,” said Jeff Lawson, chief engineer of Sensuss, a startup company that aims to prevent extensive injury to athletes due to head contact. “Through trials of Everyware Cloud we know we're able to provide critical information to parents, coaches and athletes in real time, while also storing that crucial information for later use by the medical community.”

The Everyware Cloud is based on open standards, allowing users to connect their applications to the cloud platform quickly using a simple open application programming interface (API). Secure and efficient, the Everyware Cloud allows any size business to access powerful data and capabilities that used to only be available to companies that could invest huge amounts of time and resources in building large IT infrastructures and complex processes. Benefits of Everyware Cloud 2.0 include: Improved Device Connectivity – Everyware Cloud data model optimises the device data communication aspect reducing protocol overhead and easing device management.

Real-time Data Management – On the fly device data analysis and correlation to trigger business decisions, with no programming skills required.

Long-term Queryable Data – Data can be stored and queried later at any time (for 36 months or even longer).

Flexible – Any format of data can be stored and accessed in the high-performance schema-less database.

Platform Console – Easy-to-use web interface for device and platform management.

Rich Set of APIs – All the platform features, even the console, are accessible through

standard REST interface for easy IT integration.

Quick and Easy Setup – Zero configuration required for new device connectivity.

Device Independent – Open platform readily supporting ESF-enabled devices (from Eurotech or third parties) and enabling custom device connectivity. n

Eurotech at a glance Eurotech is a global company that integrates hardware, software, services and expertise to deliver embedded computing and communications platforms to leading OEMs, system integrators and enterprise customers for successful and efficient deployment of their products and services. Eurotech lowers power draw, minimises physical size and reduces coding complexity to bring sensors, embedded platforms, sub-systems, ready-to-use devices and high performance computers to market, specialising in transportation, industrial, defence and medical segments. By combining domain expertise in wireless connectivity as well as communications protocols, Eurotech architects Cloudbased platforms that simplify data capture, processing and transfer over unified communications networks.

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Supply Chain

Success story

Better Life selects Oracle to support growth of its hypermarket business Better Life Commercial Chain Share Co., one of China’s leading multiformat retailers, has selected a broad footprint of Oracle and Oracle Retail applications to support the growth of its hypermarket operations. unan-based Better Life was China’s first multi-format retailer and now operates 186 hypermarkets, department stores and consumer electronics stores, in addition to entertainment and real estate operations across Southern China.

Expansion of its hypermarket business is integral to Better Life’s rapid growth strategy in an increasingly competitive market, and the retailer will use Oracle applications to establish a scalable, integrated retail foundation to underpin its expansion in the grocery market.

H

Better Life identified multiple components of Oracle Retail Merchandising Operations Management, Oracle Retail Merchandise Planning and Optimisation, and Oracle Retail InStore Operations as key enablers to optimizing its operations by creating a consolidated view of product, price, inventory and associated back office information that facilitates improved fulfilment of customer demand.

Smarter decision making With a better understanding of inventory from buying through store transactions, Better Life will gain actionable insight with which it can make smarter, more profitable decisions around planning, forecasting and replenishment.

Better Life will also implement Oracle software including the Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Hyperion Planning, Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle's Siebel CRM, Oracle's PeopleSoft Human Capital Management, Oracle Data Integrator, and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) to support its retail operations. The investment in Oracle applications will enable Better Life to replace legacy systems that could no longer

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provide the required levels of visibility or reporting to effectively support business operations. After evaluating Oracle and SAP, Better Life selected Oracle based on its deep retail functionality and best practices, scalability and proven performance with leading grocery retailers worldwide.

Noel Trinder, CEO of Supermarket/Hypermarket Division of Better Life, commented: “Oracle will provide us with the capabilities to manage our

experience, which will help us to manage our expanding operations and remain at the forefront of the competitive grocery market in China.”

Driving value Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager at Oracle Retail, added: “By aligning operations and driving performancerelated insight with Oracle Retail applications,

“

By capturing relevant and accurate information and achieving a more holistic view of our business, we expect to drive improvements in performance, profitability and the customer experience, which will help us to manage our expanding operations and remain at the forefront of the competitive grocery market in China.”

– Noel Trinder, Better Life.

operations more effectively. By capturing relevant and accurate information and achieving a more holistic view of our business, we expect to drive improvements in performance, profitability and the customer

Better Life is creating an experience platform that will help it to exceed consumer expectations, achieve its strategic business objectives and drive value from its investments in Oracle.” n

Oracle Retail at a glance Oracle provides retailers with a complete, open and integrated suite of business applications, server and storage solutions that are engineered to work together to optimise every aspect of their business. Many top retailers worldwide – including fashion, hardlines, grocery and specialty retailers – use Oracle solutions to drive performance, deliver critical insights and fuel growth across traditional, mobile and commerce channels.

Oracle in Industries Oracle industry solutions leverage the company's portfolio of products to address complex business processes relevant to retail, helping speed time to market, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge.

Oracle Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the Cloud and in customers’ data centres.

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10-11 October 2012

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IT

MANUFACTURING

JULY 2012

In conjunction with

30th October 2012 Swissôtel Düsseldorf, Germany www.manufacturing-awards.com

Rewarding excellence in all aspects of manufacturing If you have implemented a manufacturing strategy in recent years which has enhanced the long term success and stability of your organisation then we need to hear from you!

Enter today for your chance to gain European wide recognition for your innovative strategies alongside past award winners including: Heineken, L’Oreal, Premier Foods, Toyota Motor Europe and Unilever.

Submit your entry by 20th August 2012, for your chance to be awarded winner of: t t t t t t

Innovation and Change Award Outstanding Achievement in Continuous Improvement Award Green and Sustainable Manufacturing Award Global and World Class Manufacturing Award Collaboration and Strategic Partnership Award Factory of the Future Award

More information: To apply for an entry application form for a specialist category visit www.manufacturing-awards.com or contact Sarah Watson, Awards Co-ordinator for further information by email sarah.watson@wtgevents.com or call +44 (0)20 7202 7632.

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IDENTIFY, TRACK, MANAGE.

YOUR TECHNOLOGY CHOICE. OUR EXPERTISE.

Where is automatic identification headed next?

With an established track record in innovation, Zebra offers a wide choice of printers to address many different business needs and trends, spanning linear and 2-D barcodes to active and passive RFID. Zebra’s innovative spirit and years of deep auto-ID experience enable us to work ahead of the curve to fulfil a wide range of evolving market requirements.

Trust Zebra to help your organisation to use auto-ID technology to operate even more efficiently.

RFID PRINTERS FROM ZEBRA For further information on Zebra printing solutions for RFID, scan the bar code on the right. Alternatively, telephone +44 (0)1628 556000, e-mail mseurope@zebra.com or visit www.zebra.com/rfid ©2011 ZIH Corp. All product names and numbers are Zebra trademarks, and Zebra and representation of Zebra Head are registered trademarks of ZIH Corp.

All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

R110Xi4™