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Meat-picking by voice: Pick-by-Voice processes in SAP LES
Efficiency increase for the own brand "SPAR meat & more" through paperless picking
Pick-by-Voice processes in SAP LES:
SPAR Switzerland optimises meat picking of its own-brand SPAR meat & more
About SPAR Switzerland
The SPAR Group is a Swiss retail company with headquarters in Sankt Gallen. The SPAR Group includes around 200 SPAR neighbourhood stores, SPAR mini and SPAR express convenience stores and TopCC Cash & Carry cash & carry pick-up stores. The majority of the stores are run by independent retailers in a franchising system.
The SPAR Group employs around 2,000 people (as of May 2020). SPAR relies on food supermarkets in the neighbourhood, a wide range of fresh products and a wide variety of assortments including local and organic products. Since April 2016, the SPAR Group has been a subsidiary of South Africa’s The SPAR Group Ltd, which generated total sales of CHF 7.4 billion in 2019.
Industry: Retail
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- www.spar.ch
"With the project meat & more we have created the necessary flexibility towards suppliers, products and new ideas. This is now fully supported by new logistics processes with IT."
Initial situation
In July 2019, SPAR Handels AG (hereinafter SPAR Switzerland) launched the new own brand “SPAR meat & more” for meat, sausages, charcuterie, marinades and side dishes in all SPAR markets in Switzerland. This is intended to focus on animal welfare and sustainability, among other things.
Up to now, the central supplier has pre-packed the ordered meat products in boxes in line with the markets’ requirements. Re-packing at the distribution centre in St. Gallen no longer took place.
This led to inconsistencies, e.g. with regard to delivered goods or quantity. It was decided that in future picking would be done directly at the distribution centre and no longer at the supplier.
About the project
The project was divided into 2 phases:
- Phase 1: New implementation of special picking processes for weight articles into the existing SAP LES with Pick-by-Voice:
Go-Live on 29.06.2019, project duration 3 months - Phase 2: Optimisation package for further improvement of specific cross-docking and allocation processes:
Go-live on 04.05.2020, project duration 4 months
Applied solutions and services
- SAP LES
- SAP ITS with mobile Pick-by-Voice devices
- LP MobileGRAFIX Studio for Pick-by-Voice for SAP ITS
Highlights of the implementation
- Tailor-made processes for pick-by-voice communication between employee and SAP system
- Rounding problem solved without SAP Catch Weight functionality
- Very fast implementation, phase 1 lasted only 3 months
Key benefits for SPAR Switzerland
- Error reduction and efficiency increase
- Visibility of the processes in the system
- Future flexibility in the adaptation of processes
Description Phase 1:
New implementation of the meat picking processes
in existing SAP LES with pick-by-voice processing
Initial situation
Until now, the pre-commissioning of orders took place at the central supplier, not at the distribution centre in St. Gallen. The ordering process was as follows:
1. The stores send their meat product orders to SPAR Switzerland.
2. SPAR Switzerland sends a collective order with article-related SLS sub-items to a central supplier via EDI.
3. The ordered meat products are pre-picked in boxes by the central supplier in line with markets’ requirements.
4. The pre-picked goods are delivered to the SPAR Switzerland distribution centre and parked at the cross-docking storage location (cold storage).
5. Delivery to the ordering SPAR stores without repacking.
Pre-packing by the vendor led to inconsistencies, for example, with regard to delivered goods or quantity. Therefore, it was decided to carry out picking directly in the distribution center in St. Gallen in the future and no longer via the suppliers.
Implementation
The future process for ordering and delivery of meat products at SPAR Switzerland included an incoming goods process and an outgoing goods process. For this purpose, a so-called cross-docking process was implemented in a new warehouse number.
The goods are stored in a cross-docking storage type in line with markets’ requirements and are made available at a later date for loading the market tours, i.e. removed from storage.
- For this purpose 4 RF transactions were implemented, 2 manual and 2 system managed transactions each.
- Futhermore, pick-by-voice communication was implemented in SAP ITS.
- In addition, effective label printing was integrated.
Challenges
- "Marriage" of deliveries to the SPAR markets with supplier deliveries (cross-dock)
- Market-oriented storage in the cross-docking storage types (cold storage)
