Citation
(2003), "On track", Work Study, Vol. 52 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2003.07952gab.013
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
On track
On track
Car care products manufacturer Tetrosyl has completed the first phase of a £250,000 two-year project to overhaul its production, inventory and warehousing processes to create a real-time inventory tracking system. The company makes a range of high street car and home care products and needed a system that could recognise, process and track different types of stock labels as they moved through the supply chain. The first phase of the project introduced a pallet-tracking solution into Tetrosyl's production line, allowing it to improve stock turnover, operating efficiency and customer satisfaction. "All pallets are now radio linked, so that when, say, a forklift operator picks up and scans a pallet, he or she can immediately find out which vehicle it has to be loaded on and where it has to go," said IT project manager Glenn Tunbridge. Since the system went live last December, more than 100,000 pallets of goods worth between £5m and £6m have been manufactured and moved through the company's warehouses.
For the next project phase, completed in August, the company extended the tracking system to its warehouses, further improving the logistics process. "A lot of the benefits are invisible in terms of actual cost reductions, but have led to a much more efficient warehousing system which has improved our stock-holding capability", said Tunbridge.
ERP systems integration technology specialist, Agility Systems, was contracted to build the system and develop the necessary software. It created a real-time processing environment, based on an IBM iSeries 820 platform, fully integrated with Tetrosyl's existing GEAC System 21 enterprise resource planning system.