DHL Exel Supply Chain and Home Retail Group (Argos/Homebase) have been awarded the Project Implementation of the Year title at the European Retail Solutions Awards 2007 in a joint submission for the implementation of Manhattan Associates’ PkMS (Pick Ticket Management System) Warehouse Management Solution.
The implementation at the Argos Direct site in Marsh Leys, Bedfordshire, was the second phase of a long term collaborative project between Home Retail Group and DHL. The purpose of the project was to replace the older paper based warehouse management system for ’two man’ deliveries, with a modern radio frequency one.
DHL faced a unique challenge as previously no global implementation has replaced existing warehouse management software with PkMS without dramatically reducing the throughput of their operation.
The warehouse at Marsh Leys, Bedford, is a 670,000 sq ft facility that can hold the equivalent of 70,000 UK pallets of stock. Every day, DHL make around 6,000 deliveries of large items such as beds, white goods, upholstery, furniture, TVs and gym equipment from this site.
Changing to PkMS has increased the accuracy of stock management through the ’two man’ delivery supply chain from receipt of supplier stock to the point of delivery (and of subsequent returns) and has significantly improved productivity.
The implementation was planned over an eight-month preparation period and two-months of phased transition. Transition problems would have impacted customers and incurred significant expense so an approach was devised that would allow the two systems to run parallel .- this is believed to be the first time globally that this had ever been attempted.
"This is a great example of how working in an innovative way has resulted in a great technical implementation that has delivered tangible business benefits," said Mike Allchurch, Home Retail Group IS Program Manager.
“Key to the success of the project was recognizing the huge business change challenge and the need for complete buy-in from our team of 50 managers and 500 warehouse colleagues.
We knew that as we migrated to PkMS, our productivity would initially decrease, however in order to combat this and ensure continuity of service we put in place extensive plans which enabled us to continue to operate at normal volumes throughout this period. We are extremely proud of the team’s success in this achievement which is reflected in this award,” said Jim McKechnie at DHL Logistics.
