Keihin Distribution has Implemented SSA Global Warehouse Management Solution to Maximize Operational Efficiency, Minimize Significant Amount of Error Rates and Promote Greater Employee Productivity
SSA Global Japan (Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; president: Yoichi Hosoi), a leading global provider of enterprise business software and services, announced today that Keihin Distribution (Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture: president Hideya Kawaguchi), a member company of Keihin group, has implemented SSA Warehouse Management 4000 (hereunder, SSA WMS), a distribution management solution, to maximize the productivity of Keihin Distribution’s product centers and reduce shipment errors. As a result, efficiency of productivity was doubled and error rate was reduced significantly.
The system was built for delivery of catalogs to individual mail order customers of the Catalog Department, Mail Order Headquarters of Japanese Consumers’ Co-operative Union (a major customer of Keihin Distribution). The previous distribution management system was built by an information system management company and a member company of Keihin Distribution. In addition, it links to the Catalog Department.
As the distribution volume increased, the system approached the limits of its processing capabilities and in order to handle increasing shipment volume, the Catalog Department formulated a five-year plan, which required a scalable distribution data management system.
Specifications of the existing system were left unchanged. However, the plan proceeded to strengthen the existing system, and implement / integrate the SSA WMS. Installation began after designing the system architecture. After specifying the functions in December 2004, it tested the integrated system and its operation. In August 2005, the new system started full operations.
Main operational efficiencies include the following:
●Operation time of purchase slip data input was reduced by 33%, compared with the previous version.
●By automatically identifying the most efficient order items’ picking routes, picking volume was increased by an average 20% per operator.
●By visual verification of seven-digit product codes becoming RF terminal barcode management, it minimized the shipment error; more specifically one error in 10,000 to one error in 50,000.
●The daily turnover volume per operator is clarified by the new system. Thus, it enables managers to oversee the work abilities of operators, and assess them fairly.
In the future, by utilizing the new system more intensively, Keihin Distribution plans to target a 50% improvement of workers’ efficiency, use the application as a sales tool, and use it to acquire new customers.
Filed under: SSA Global
