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Digitization in logistics – from project definition to trouble-free rollout

An Eastern European automotive plant is gearing up for e-mobility. In the course of this, an automated warehouse is being built. In the process, investments are being made in digitization. From goods receipt to the automated warehouse, via order picking on tugger trains to the production line, each package is seamlessly traceable and intelligently controlled. BLSG is playing a leading role on the board: We ensure that the various IT systems, from the retrieval system to the transport control system, the material flow computer of the automated warehouse and the warehouse management system, all work and interact smoothly with each other. BLSG consultants manage the project from order clarification via technical conception to implementation, including the following start-up support. In addition, we set up master data and logics in the systems and advise and qualify key users. This is how digitization works in practice!

Optimization of the Car Seat Supply Chain

Yard vehicles due to missing parts, extremely high costs due to special freight and acceleration measures, intensive manual bottleneck management and high inventories that lead to scrapping costs when changes occur.

What root causes lead to problems in complex supply chains?

What is needed to ensure efficiency and transparency within a multi-tier supply chain from the product development process through ramp-up to stable operation?

The answers are complex and can only be worked out with an interdisciplinary team. With the support of BLSG and in dialog with participating suppliers, a number of elementary measures have been defined and implemented at an automotive OEM:

• Structured supply chain design,
• greater transparency as the basis for targeted supply chain management,
• a structured and disciplined change process,
• adjustments in product variance and improvements in program forecasting

– all of these contribute to stability in complex supply chains!

Logistical start-up support for new vehicle projects (parts lists and call-offs)

In order to secure the production start-up of seats for several new vehicle models, BLSG’s experts, together with the supplier’s parts list engineers, developed a variety of tools and then used them in their daily work. For example, customers’ parts lists can now be compared with the supplier’s parts lists. The aim was to obtain parts lists of the right quality and to establish precisely tailored communication between parts list engineers and the customer. By means of several key performance indicators (e.g. for parts list accuracy) a weekly check of success was introduced. In addition, a LAB tool was developed which compares delivery schedules over a longer period of time and checks them for relevance using customized criteria: Is the number of left and right seats the same? Are the part numbers correct? Are the thresholds, e.g. the maximum number of seats that can be called off, correct? This analysis made it possible to improve communication with the customer and eliminate any inconsistencies.

KPI-board connected supply chain at a leading freight forwarding company

An international freight forwarding company was selected by an OEM as a pilot freight forwarder for a project called “Connected Supply Chain”. The aim of this project was to provide the OEM with an ETA (estimated time of arrival) of the delivering trucks every 5 minutes based on GPS data. The OEM divided the project into three phases, the hypercare phase, stabilisation phase and series operation, which lasted a total of 16 weeks. To ensure process and data quality, approx. 30 key performance indicators (KPIs) were defined for these phases, e.g. each status message transmitted by a truck should contain a geo-location. To do so, BLSG’s experts developed a KPI board in cooperation with the client. The data recorded by the trucks was accessed by means of various SQL queries. To be able to influence the KPIs, one or more reports were created for each KPI. These reports provided detailed information that was used to derive subsequent measures.

Warehouse and logistics planning with start-up support for vehicle batteries

New products present companies with new challenges. A good example of this is logistics planning for batteries: the regulations for fire protection, container weights and contamination tolerance have changed. From conceptual design and tendering to start-up, from warehouse dimensioning to the planning of picking processes and layout. In all of these phases the BLSG consultants provided valuable support for a major German logistics service provider.