ERP And WMS Meet Customers' Needs For Just-In-Time Delivery

Just because they're large - weighing approximately two tons each - doesn't mean you can't lose rolls of paperboard. One of the largest paperboard and machinery-based packaging systems companies in the world knows this all too well. From its headquarters located in the southeastern United States, this company directs the operations of its mills, packaging plants, machinery facilities, warehouses, and sales offices worldwide. The company's mills produce coated, unbleached kraft (CUK) paperboard for beverage and general folding carton applications.

The company's packaging plants print and convert paperboard into beverage carriers and folding cartons. Its customers include Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.; PepsiCo, Inc.; Campbell Soup Company; and Mattel, Inc. The $1 billion company has more than 4,000 employees. The company's two U.S. mills produce more than 1 million tons of CUK annually.

Truck-Mounted Scanners Speed Delivery
The paperboard manufacturer's customers don't keep a lot of inventory. After all, who has room to store hundreds of two-ton, five-foot long paper rolls? The company uses a combination of SAP and Peak Technologies software for its WMS and enterprise resource planning (ERP). All of the shipping and logistics activities center on SAP. The company uses SAP's version 31H and is unlikely to convert to SAP's version 46. As a result, large amounts of data need to be manually entered into the WMS. This data includes 10-digit batch numbers. The company wanted to remove the possibility of errors from the WMS. To do this, it worked with Peak Technologies to develop an interface. The interface is between the warehouse lift trucks and truck-mounted radio frequency (RF) units and the existing ERP system. The interface eliminated manual keying of data. The Peak interface creates the delivery order and assigns it to the trucks for shipping. It also performs job costing and tracks inventory.

The key to the WMS is batch numbers. Each roll of paper produced by the company is given a bar-coded label containing a unique batch number. The batch number contains all the information about that product, from when it was made to what machine produced it. For quality purposes, the batch number is very important. The batch number also contains the technical specifications for each type of paper, including its wet strength and size.

The batch numbers are scanned as products move from the manufacturing plants or mills into a truck. They are scanned again when received in the company's warehouses. The numbers are scanned one more time as final deliveries leave the warehouses en route to customers. Handheld scanning devices aren't used because of the environment, with safety being an issue.

Quality Control By The Batch
Batch numbers are used to verify correct delivery of goods. For example, a 48-inch paper roll looks very much like a 50-inch paper roll. It makes a big difference when you send customers 50-inch paper rolls and they are set up to run 48-inch rolls. The wrong shipment could shut down a customer's plant. Since the paper business is highly competitive, the paper manufacturer doesn't want its customers to get paperboard from any other supplier.

The Peak interface also alerts the company to missing rolls or extra rolls in deliveries. Losing a paper roll is one thing, but losing a truck is another. The company would like to expand the WMS to include a tracking program for deliveries. Customers running short on paperboard are known to call the company every hour to find out the exact location of the delivery truck.

Questions about this article? E-mail the author at LisaK@corrypub.com.