In the food and beverage industry, standards, testing and above all time are essential components of the retail process. Sell-by and process dates are vital in the fight against bacteria. Add to this the issue of basic efficiency and this makes the food and beverage industry an obvious choice for the implementation of supply chain management systems.
Peter Mostert, Chief Operating Officer at the Streamworks Group, puts it this way: "Streamlining the manufacturing process offers a way to make the manufacturer more efficient and therefore more competitive. It offers a way to outperform the opposition, through putting in systems which can track every single component at any given time, whether in the raw materials warehouse, or in the finished goods warehouse.
"Inefficient manufacturing organisations waste capital in acquiring excess raw materials, waste the space it takes to store them in and waste time in searching for their location. At the same time, they are often faced with stock shortages in other areas, leading to stoppages at vital stages in the production line, or in a search for expensive or sub-standard substitutes."
The Parmalat UHT plant in Parow in the Western Cape is a model example of an efficient operating system that has sorted out these potential retail problems, thanks to the implementation of a warehouse system designed and commissioned by Streamworks. Parmalat's UHT Warehouse Manager, Shaun Bhana, comments: "I am always aware of what I have in the warehouse and where it is - before, this information was not available to me. If I needed something I would have to physically go and find it."
Streamworks began commissioning the project on 6 October 1999. The facility was running within a few days and Streamworks engineers left site 10 days later. In terms of the processes involved, Parmalat's UHT Parow plant comprises goods that are inbound, outbound or outbound offsite.
Inbound
Parmalat's warehouse receives product from its production facility. Product, both juice and milk, leaves the production facility in individual cartons. These are sorted and batched in palletisers at the production intake site which can be thought of as the interface between the production facility and the warehouse.
A pallet begins to be tracked from the moment a label is printed for the pallet. Each printed bar code has a unique tracking number assigned to it. The bar code is placed on the pallet which is then ready to be sent to its correct destination: either within the warehouse racking system, or a designated pre-staging offsite area, or straight for export.
Forklift drivers receive step by step commands, via radio frequency vehicle mount units, to collect product from the production intake area. Once the pallet has been scanned at the production area the forklift driver will receive the next command as to where to place the pallet. The designated areas that will be assigned are determined by various properties of the pallet.
The pallet will then be placed at a drop-off area for turret trucks to collect. These turret trucks are capable of driving within the warehouse racking.
The pallet is scanned once again at the drop-off area and placed into either the warehouse racking or to the offsite facility pre-staging area for collection at a later stage. If the pallet properties represent an export pallet, the pallet is moved to an export area within the warehouse.
Outbound
There are three types of outbound movement, namely local orders, offsite orders and export orders. Various order numbers are placed into loads and downloaded to the warehouse management system. These orders are planned by the warehouse management.
During the planning stage the order is first selected and a number of pre-staging areas are then designated in the warehouse according to the day's needs. Once the order has been accepted the system automatically selects the oldest product for dispatch. The warehouse manager is notified immediately of any order that has not been fulfilled due to low stock. It is at the manager's discretion how these orders will be fulfilled.
Bhana comments: "At the push of a button I can also check the expiry dates of my produce, which is extremely important in the dairy business. My racking time onto the trucks has been reduced by 20%, which means that I can now send out two extra trucks per day."
When the oldest product has been selected for dispatch, the turret truck within the warehouse aisles will be instructed to bring the booked product to pickup points. The entire product assigned to various orders will be picked and placed into the selected pre-staging areas.
Once a truck arrives to collect product the truck is booked into the warehouse system against an order. Only then is the product, which has been placed into the pre-staging area, released for placing on the truck. All the product is placed onto the truck, a packing slip is printed and the truck's load is completed.
Export orders are similar to local orders with the difference being that the pallets are repacked into larger quantities.
Offsite outbound
If a truck is booked in against an offsite order the product that has been closed to the offsite facility pre-staging area will be moved onto the truck in the same way as per the outbound process. This means that once again the oldest product is selected for dispatch, after which the turret truck within the warehouse aisles brings the booked product to pick-up points. The product assigned to various orders is picked and placed into the selected pre-staging areas before being finally placed onto the truck and a packing slip printed.
The product is also tracked while in-transit to the offsite facility which Streamworks offers as a unique feature of Parmalat's Parow UHT warehouse management system.
When the truck arrives at the offsite facility the pallets are scanned using a batch scanner and this information is uploaded to a computer at the offsite facility. On a daily basis, and as many times as is required, the offsite facility dials into the Parmalat Parow UHT local server, via a remote dial-up connection. All transactions that occurred after the last remote transfer are thus transferred to the local server of the Parow UHT warehouse system, keeping the records fully updated.
The offsite facilities also have the ability to dispatch product from the offsite warehouse. The offsite orders are all planned at the warehouse manager's computer. The manager will select which product is appropriate for picking. Once the warehouse manager is satisfied, he will release the order for downloading. The offsite facility dials into the local server and requests orders to be transferred which apply to his offsite facility. The offsite facility books a truck into the facility and scans the pallets onto the truck. Once the order is complete the offsite facility prints a packing slip. This information is then transferred back to the local server and integrated to the business system.
An additional bonus the Streamworks system has brought to the Parmalat Parow UHT plant lies in stocktaking. Bhana comments that the system has "dramatically reduced" the time needed for stocktaking. "Before, it would take us a weekend to stock-take, representing a day and a half. Now, we have a stock-take done in just two hours."
Parmalat's business system is currently being upgraded. The order system is manual at present and Streamworks engineers will return for commissioning of the new system in the near future.
Streamworks
(011) 803 4376
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