Efficient Load Planning for Warehouse Transfers

Automating daily mission-critical operations for efficiency and agility.

Introduction
About
The Customer

A leading UK-based food supplier with 60+ years of experience, 20+ distribution centers nationwide, and a 6,000+ team. They serve the requirements of large-scale customers and provide a wide range of food products. The food supplier leverages their vast logistics network to guarantee timely deliveries, even to remote locations.

Industry
Food Supply and Distribution
System Landscape
SAP ECC
Duration
6 months
Overview

The company faced problems with their manual ordering and load planning processes which handle thousands of products daily. These operations depend on accurate calculations of vehicle space utilization based on product dimensions and weights. The complexity of this function resulted in erroneous load calculations, time delays, vehicle underutilization or overload, delivery schedule disruptions, and higher transportation costs.

Efficient Load Planning for Warehouse Transfers: A Success Story
Business Challenges
Efficient Load Planning for Warehouse Transfers: A Success Story
Business Challenges
  • Multiple depots, truck types, and planners.
  • Thousands of products with varying dimensions.
  • Products arranged on pallets in different configurations.
  • Maximizing the number of pallets per truck.
  • 200+ loads organized weekly, using more than 6,000 pallets.
  • Stock Transport Orders (STOs) created prior to load planning.
  • Manual document changes based on load plans.
Goals
  • A more streamlined and automated solution for efficient operations was an imperative for the company.
Our Solution

We designed the solution to automate manual functions, reduce operational complexity, enable real-time planning, and improve the user experience.

The solution provides the following capabilities:

  • Automatic order generation each morning using MRP data, stock coverage range, and product availability at remote depots.
  • Customized, value-added features such as automated truck utilization calculations to improve load planning.
  • Comprehensive overview of load plans.
Efficient Load Planning for Warehouse Transfers: A Success Story
Technologies Used
  • Object-Oriented ABAP with MVC architecture.
  • Mulesoft-based integration.
Efficient Load Planning for Warehouse Transfers: A Success Story
Results

The customer has a user-friendly system with real-time data integration to support scalable operations.

These are some of the immediate benefits:

  • Planners spend a significantly lower amount of time and effort.
  • ​​More flexibility when creating STOs and daily load plans.
  • More accurate load building and vehicle space utilization.
  • Improved order processing with timely deliveries and lower transportation costs.

With this new system, the company is more agile, able to adapt faster to changing, implement new strategies quickly, and stay competitive. Real-time data strengthens decision-making at the company. This solution reduces operational disruptions through integration and communication of the many different systems and processes in the company. This also reduces downtime and errors.