New systems provide effective warehouse management, simplified logistics and improved manpower productivity for Indian fashion retailer
New systems provide effective warehouse management, simplified logistics and improved manpower productivity for Indian fashion retailer
Madura Fashion and Lifestyle (F&L) has implemented a new warehouse management system to increase supply chain efficiency and workforce management.
The retailer is one of the top five apparel brands in India, operating with premium brands like Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, Esprit and Peter England.
Two warehouses with a combined area of 400,000 square foot support its retail business, which accounts for 55% of revenue and is made up of 1,050 exclusive flagship and concept and more than 2,500 multi brand stores and concessions across the sub-continent.
“With diverse requirements for multiple brands, managing the warehouse for the retail business had become a daunting task,” said Suresh Kumar, Madura F&L head of supply chain and logistics. “We strongly needed a warehouse management system to effectively manage our warehouses.”
The retailer has been using SAP for financial management and Oracle for sales management. “The WMS needed to completely integrate with both applications for multi-level communication and data flow,” according to Kumar.
The company also wanted to improve its order management process where the order allocation and replenishment is done automatically. In the warehouse, the inwards ‘putaway’ dispatch processes were manually handled, which Madura wanted to automate using a WMS. The WMS also needed to handle the wave management, which essentially means managing multiple orders coming from multiple customers from multiple stores or cities or even states on different dates. This would help in merging of multiple orders as well as customer bills so as to ease the dispatching process.
The company needed a WMS solution that could automate the tracking, retrieving and order management process in its warehouses. “Additionally, the solution was needed to be flexible to handle multi-order scenario; customisable so as to integrate with the existing systems; scalable to handle the diverse and expanding business, and user friendly for faster user acceptance,” added Kumar.
Finding the right partner
Madura F&L chose to implement Infor WMS version 9.0.2. “Implementation of Infor WMS was one of the key milestones in our IT deployments as it was a paradigm shift in the management of our warehouses,” Kumar explained.
Madura F&L implemented the Infor WMS application in a phased manner with the system going live for the ‘People’ brand in April 2008. “The release was only for five stores and with limited functionalities,” says Suresh. “Only when the product was stabilised that, we went live for the Allen Solly Brand for 55 stores with all functionalities seven months later in the November.”
Today, the product covers all the brands of the firm such as Van Heusen, Louis Philippe, Esprit, and Peter England for all 1,050 of Madura F&L’s stores. Madura also benefitted from the customisation capabilities of the product as the Infor team could integrate it with SAP and Oracle. “The product being a Java based open source product helped in this regard.” Implementation of the product was smooth and it also got rapid acceptance amongst users, owing to its user friendliness.
With the implementation of Infor WMS, the warehouse putaway and dispatch process is now 100% automated. “It ensures that what is coming in is what is required,” said Kumar. The WMS also provided multiple options of put-away thereby providing flexibility in the placement of a particular item. “It is a double edged sword providing both, increase in put-away productivity and improvement in bin utilisation,” he added.
Building on warehouse benefits
“We were able to extract tremendous value from the implementation of Infor WMS,” Kumar continued. “Over the past three to four years we have witnessed significant improvements in almost every aspect of warehouse management.”
The picking and packing of goods has increased by 20%, while putaway rates have gone up by 15%. Along with the improvement in bin utilisation the inventory accuracy at bin level has also seen a significant increase. Due to automated warehouse management, there is also a noticeable reduction in time and resource requirement at store end during inbound receiving reflecting improvement in manpower productivity by an impressive 10%. This has provided the management with better labour visibility and allows improved tracking of employee performance on a periodic basis.
The multiple orders picking option along with the bill merging capabilities has provided the much-needed flexibility in billing and more effective coordination with transporters. Also, the shipping errors have decreased from 1% to nearly nil and wrong packing instances have also decreased from 0.5% to nearly nil. “Infor’s WMS allowed Madura to extract more from its processes enabling business growth,” said Kumar. The success of this has helped Madura decide to also extend Infor’s solution to its trade channels in the future.
Overall, Madura F&L has used the Infor WMS to automate its entire warehouse management processes without compromising on flexibility or customisability. “While automating the company’s warehouse management process, Infor WMS has provided the much needed flexibility coupled with user friendliness for a smooth and effective implementation. The solution has also made our business agile enabling it to react quickly to the changing business needs giving us a competitive edge,” Kumar concluded.
