Following a MoyaVox Project from Conception to Implementation
John is the logistics director for a manufacturing company and has control of the warehousing. They have a historic Warehouse Management System (WMS) that they bought the source code for a number of years ago, and have heavily modified the solution to fit their operation as it has evolved and expanded.
The warehouse has changed and expanded over a number of years, and while the ordering and invoicing works well, John is aware that the processes do not really match the Business requirements now.
There are a number of employees who have worked in the warehouse for many years and have progressed to junior and middle management, and the system and the processes rely heavily on their expertise to ensure orders are fulfilled in good time.
The new business that has been brought in over the last few years has tended to be seasonal; this has meant that there is a growing requirement for temporary staff, which is difficult with the complex WMS workarounds in use. There is also the prospect of an e-commerce division being created in the next 12 months, and it will be difficult to fulfil the expected increased workload with the current warehouse operation.
John and his managers have found a good agency who has provided a good quality of temporary workers, but as the current systems cannot provide reports down to individual workers he cannot be sure if some of the temporary hires are working as well as they could.
Recently John had one of his team leaders taken on long term sickness, and he has lost the knowledge that worker carried, for an indefinite period.
Furthermore the Board of Directors has told John that they need to expand the current products they offer, and increase the number of orders processed as they plan to expand the business, but any new solutions will need to be paid for out of savings made over the next year because the e-commerce business has been designated a priority.
John has investigated replacing the current WMS, including a number of SaaS options, but has found that any solution that would provide gains over the existing system would need a high number of developments, increasing the cost of the proposal, and would also cause a large amount of disruption to the operation as these developments are carried out and tested.
John approached MoyaVox to see if they could offer a solution to the complex issues he had in the business.
The first step was for MoyaVox to arrange a call with John to get a high level understanding of his issues. One of the operations consultants contacted John and he outlined the results his business needed to achieve, and how his warehouse currently operated. It was decided that there was a case for further investigation and a visit to his site was arranged.
John and his management team walked the MoyaVox Consultant through the current processes and highlighted the problem areas. They further discussed the other factors, such as the cost and training of the temporary staff at each peak period, and the need to increase both the number of lines and the orders dispatched without increasing the operational overheads.
The Consultant understood the process requirements and outlined how, together with John and his team, they would work out the ROI period by gathering the KPIs; additionally the consultant committed to create a report outlining the new processes and the gains that could be made, and how the business requirements would be answered. There was then an agreement for a second visit, where the proposal, quote and ROI would be presented to a team of decision makers from Senior Management.
The Consultant presented the findings and provided a demonstration of the solution. With an ROI period of less than 12 months, no need to replace the existing system, greater management of the operators and a large saving by tackling inaccuracy the business case was approved. John had previously been happy with his warehouse accuracy of 99%, and was amazed that MoyaVox could offer an accuracy rate of 99.9%.
With the business case passed the Board asked John to investigate the technology before they would give final approval and discuss a payment strategy.
John was taken to an existing Voice site and had the opportunity to speak to a manager who uses the Voice Solution. Confirming the possible gains and the ongoing support they had received from MoyaVox the manager was happy to recommend the Solution.
Owing to the business placing restrictions on the purchase of new solutions, MoyaVox were able to work with John to formulate a flexible payment plan that spread the cost over the implementation period and satisfied the Board.
With the Implementation agreed a team of MoyaVox Development and Operational experts met with the internal warehouse developers and the Super Users, and created a detailed functional design which followed the processes laid out in the first report and detailed the interfaces that would be created. This was agreed across the teams and signed off. A project plan detailing the full project until the handover to the Support Team was agreed and the milestones for the project were set.
After two months, and the user acceptance testing was completed, the first warehouse function went live in the warehouse. This allowed all of the remaining functions to carry on with their current processes while the operation increased their comfort and familiarity with MoyaVox. The Super Users were active in the testing and the implementation, showing their colleagues how the Solution had been designed to help them with their job, giving them the confidence that the business was able to go forward and would be able to manage all of the predicted changes.
Following the successful implementation of the initial function, the remainder were rolled out across the Warehouse and the team leaders started to utilise the Management Reports to fine tune their solution. MoyaVox were present throughout the go-live, and through knowledge sharing they had ensured Johns developers and managers could use the full extent of the features available.
The full team met again and reassessed the functional specification to ensure that every aspect had been addressed. Any issues experienced during the implementation were investigated and the project plan was signed off.
The Warehouse Managers were taken through the support contract and the associated processes. Each of the team leaders were shown how to raise support tickets and were provided with all of the relevant MoyaVox contact details to ensure the quick resolution of any support issues.
As the next peak in the operational year approached John was able to start his preparations and was pleasantly surprised with his findings. With the increase in efficiency he had been able to re-task some of his workers within the business as the e-commerce division began, and some of the older employees had left as they reached retirement, but he found that he still only needed a fraction of the amount of temporary staff to handle the peak period even though they had increased the number of lines available and seen a steady rise in orders. The flexibility of the MoyaVox Solution meant it would also manage the new variations in picking for the e-commerce project.
The accuracy improvement had ensured that the ROI period was below the 12 months he had required, and the Board were very satisfied with the new annual savings they were making.
John had calculated that the cost that the cost of an error to the business was £20. His twenty warehouse operatives were already working at an accuracy of 99%, and he was dispatching 1500 lines a day. The increased accuracy had a marked effect on the profitability of the warehouse operation
With the help of MoyaVox he had saved over 200k per annum and was looking forward to showing other companies, as he had been shown himself, around his warehouse and telling them of the success he had achieved with his MoyaVox Solution.