MOBILE WAREHOUSE AT
NORDZUCKER.
Nordzucker AG, headquartered in Braunschweig, Germany, is Europe’s second-largest sugar manufacturer. The production of sugar, liquid sugars and other specialities for the application in the nutrition, beverage and sweets industry as well as other sugar specialities like refined sugar, icing sugar, lump sugar, preserving sugar, tea sugars, organic sugar and flavoured sugars for consumers are the core business of the company. In addition to that, Nordzucker produces animal feed and bioethanol from sugar beet. In the 2020/2021 financial year, the company produced 2.7 million tons of sugar from sugar beet and 0.7 million tons of sugar from sugar cane. The company takes a global approach across all business areas to serve our customers worldwide in the most efficient and effective way and uses SAP for digital supply chain and Asset Maintenance management.
The Challenge
Nordzucker AG has been using SAP for digital supply chain logistics for more than 10 years and was looking for a replacement of a legacy mobile solution based on windows mobile for the 12-production warehouse using SAP Inventory management. The new solution had to offer the same features as the bespoke legacy solution as well as run on S/4 HANA that Nordzucker AG was transitioning to in the future. Another requirement was off-line functionality and compatibility with ruggedized ANDROID based mobile devices.
The Solution
2BM Software facilitated a Design Thinking Fit Gap workshop with Nordzucker AG’s business owners, end-users of the solution and the IT department. The purpose was to identify the end-users needs and to identify the fits and gaps between the standard 2BM Mobile Warehouse solution and the business requirements based on the legacy solution and new requirements to update the solution. Based on this, Nordzucker AG chose 2BM Mobile Warehouse in a slightly customized version that would meet all their business needs.
The final solution was developed and implemented via sprints. At each sprint, the solution was tested to ensure successful development. With the Design Thinking Fit Gap workshop’s active participation in this process, the solution was developed in line with Nordzucker AG requirements from the Design Thinking Fit Gap workshop.
Key Benefits
- Warehouse technicians have quick access to the goods receipt orders assigned to them and can complete the goods receive process from the mobile device.
- The implemented system is automatically linked to the inventory management system; if a spare part or similar is added or removed the SAP system is instantly updated
- Goods receipt, Reservation picking, Employee pickup notifications, Purchase requisition creation, Stock transfer (SL-to-SL), Return material to stock, Goods movement overview, Inventory count, Split valuation are all available in the mobile warehouse app – offline, fast and user-friendly
- The solution is fully offline enabled so that the technician can access and edit warehouse processes even without an available internet connection.
- This has made the employees’ workday more efficient and has eliminated duplicate work.
- The risk of errors input into the system has also been minimized due to direct integration with the SAP backend and error handling in the application. The risk of error has also been minimized.
- The SAP Business Technology platform infrastructure utilized by the 2BM Mobile Warehouse solution lays the foundation for future solution development for other work areas and departments that can utilize the best-in-class enterprise cloud from SAP
- Warehouse processes have become better, faster, and more unified.
- NORDZUCKER AG can profile itself as a modern company using the mobile latest applications – making sure that a younger workforce can see themselves using the tools provided by IT
- As the Mobile Warehouse solution is constantly being upgraded with new features being released twice a year and continued maintenance and support for the 2BM Software solution, Nordzucker AG does not have to worry about having support resources inside the company to make sure a bespoke solution without new features is maintained
- After the Mobile Warehouse solution was implemented and put in use by NORDZUCKER AG, the SAP ERP system was upgraded from SAP ECC to S/4 HANA and the solution was tested
- NORDZUCKER AG is now equipped for future growth in the digital supply chain. NORDZUCKER AG can handle more warehouse processes in a shorter time. With a scalable system in place and running with best practice SAP Business Technology platform – the solution can be implemented abroad as well.
