Warehouse modernisation in five months
The objective of the warehouse reorganisation was the replacement of the ten-year-old hardware platform as well as upgrading the warehouse management software, which was also obsolete. As general contractor, S&P was responsible for the introduction of the new warehouse management software, the modernisation of the underlying control system (MFR) and integration of the SAP/R2 software through an online interface. The entire modernisation and reorganisation of the warehouse was subject to a total duration of just five months. During the reorganisation, functional components from the PPS system that resulted from Böwe-specific production conditions were integrated into the new warehouse management system. The host system transmits all production orders online to the warehouse management system, each with an average of 400 operations. There, the required quantities based on production are bundled into removal orders for several complete production lots per operation and article. The significant aspect here was the reduction in picking effort in the automatic small parts warehouse (ASPW) with a significant reduction in picking line items per workstation.
The data exchange between the PPS and the WMS, which had previously been done on magnetic tape, was converted to an online connection. The prerequisite for this was the implementation of an interface based on Lu6.2 using CPI-C libraries from SAP. The R/2 connection was also converted during live operation to an SAP R/3 connection via IDOC.
The basic requirement for introduction of the new software was a smooth transition from old to new warehouse management system without stopping warehouse operations for longer than a weekend.
During that period, the inventory was moved into the new database one storage location at a time (including the tray layout). The production orders already started in the PPS were also migrated, along with the requirement quantities from the old warehouse management system.
To integrate the ASPW, warehouse operations were reduced from three to two shifts during the two-week commissioning phase. During the third shift, the 6-aisle ASPW with fixed trays was coupled to the new warehouse management system and tested. During the rest of the time, the manually operated sheet metal and rod storage as well as the pallet and component warehouse were put into operation.