Description
Worldwide market leader in the food and tobacco industry operates one of their largest cigarette production plants in the south-west part of Holland. From this plant the main market areas in Europe are delivered.

Opportunities
For internal transportation and storage a constitution of highly mechanized and integrated material handling systems is used, which originates from the early 80’s. For reasons of obsolete technology and reduced flexibility to adapt to modern requirements, our customer planned the replacement of both the Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and the Warehouse Control Systems (WCS).

Solution
An overall design for the integrated functionalities of the future WMS and WCS was made. An implementation approach was developed to guarantee replacing all control systems with minimal impact on the running operation. A WCS solution was selected from a supplier capable of participating in an integrated approach. Finally a detailed overview of total implementation costs and a detailed plan covering the full implementation was prepared to complete the investment proposal.

Benefits

• A series of workshops both with and without suppliers shifted internal focus on technical restrictions to external focus on possibilities
• Migration scenarios and risk mitigation sessions accomplished a realistic perspective and a sound approach for implementation
• Detailed design sessions with selected suppliers provided the basis for a robust investment budget and implementation schedule.