3CON’S HOME-GROWN ERP SYSTEM IS BRINGING DYNAMISM TO THE LOGISTICS PROCESS

Connecting hardware components to operational information systems presents companies with constant technical and process-related challenges. At the 3CON headquarters in Ebbs, Austria, we have seamlessly linked our warehouse management system (WMS) with our home-grown enterprise resource planning (ERP) system 3CONnect, which is used, among other things, for directly controlling warehouse management devices and assigning orders to them.

This enables us to design the internal 3CON provision processes in a way that allows for JUST-IN-SEQUENCE MATERIAL SUPPLY TO THE ASSEMBLY TEAMS:

PARTIALLY AUTOMATED STORAGE AND ORDER PICKING

For this, we have integrated, in cooperation with the company STILL GmbH, a high-rack stacker, which is needed for managing more than 1,200 storage spaces, into the system in a way that allows for partially automated storage and retrieval as well as order picking.

In addition, the tugger train, the reach truck and the double-decker high-lift trucks were integrated. These receive the warehouse orders from the ERP system, which the employees can process with a lean user interface on a hand scanner, smartphone or using a detailed overview on large tablets. To increase process reliability in the booking sequences, photo documentation (allocation via QR codes) of the entire tugger train delivery process was incorporated.

RESOURCE- AND TIME-EFFICIENT LIFT SYSTEM

We have also integrated two KARDEX vertical lift modules in such a way that all movements carried out by the lifts are controlled by the ERP system. These lift modules are not only managed intelligently, they are also an important space and time saver. They allow us to reduce the rack storage area from 280 m² to 24 m² and minimise access times from 8 minutes to 0.6 minutes.

SMART INVENTORY MODE

Supplementary warehouse management activities, such as continuous inventory, are times by the ERP system’s algorithms in such a way that they are only released for processing when process utilisation is low. This ensures a more even utilisation, which also makes work easier for the operator.

The very positive carbon footprint of the modern fleet was made possible by the smart charge management system from FRONIUS, which uses excess electricity from our in-house photovoltaic system.