Thanks to PROLAG®World, processes at Maertin & Co. AG are now both digital and future-proof.
Maertin & Co. AG is a technical B2B and B2C distributor based in Freiburg, Breisgau. The family-owned company is a system partner and service provider active in the following areas: hosing equipment, sealants, adhesives, occupational safety, plastics and elastomer/polymer processing. Maertin uses about 8,000 m2 of storage space, of which approx. 700 m2 is designated for production and manufacture, to store around 50,000 articles, categorised in 20 - 30 article groups.
In the past, Maertin had mapped its warehouse processes without a warehouse management system (WMS). "To keep pace with the growth of our company, the range of articles we offer and our process portfolio, we decided to digitalise our entire intralogistics," explains Maertin’s Managing Director Stephanie Maertin. The primary goal was to make the company fit for the future by increasing delivery capacities and enhancing process efficiency. Thanks to the PROLAG®World warehouse management system, Maertin has been able to realise this vision.
PROLAG®World is connected to Maertin’s ERP system GWS and the Microsoft Dynamics NAV (gevis) system so that the logistics centre’s pallet, shelf and cantilever storage spaces, production and even the connected shop outlet can all be managed from a single central point. A total of 35 users work with the warehouse management system every day.
PROLAG®World Production reduces material usage and costs
Plastic cutouts are one of Maertin’s many products. The cutouts are made at Maertin’s own production facilities and at about 30 external production sites, for example in centres run by Caritas or in sheltered workshops. PROLAG®World manages production supplies for the various sites and controls production itself by means of dedicated modules integrated in the software standard. "Of particular importance to us is optimal planning of the cutouts so that as few remnants as possible are produced, and remnants management so that remnants can be utilised as optimally as possible in follow-up orders," says Stephanie Maertin. Thanks to PROLAG®World, waste and costs have been significantly reduced. Use of the cutout plates is now fully optimised, with the software assigning orders to plates based on size and maximising the number of orders that can be produced on any one plate. Any remnants after production are put back into storage and can be re-used for future orders.
PROLAG®World - an (online) store manager
A special solution was required so that PROLAG®World could manage in-shop sales and Maertin’s online shop. "The classical warehouse processes such as ordering, picking and shipping don’t exist in the shop. Customers arrive, decide and take the goods on the spot," explains Pirmin Weber, project manager at CIM GmbH. In this case, CIM’s warehouse management software doubles up as store management software. Maertin customers can buy goods directly in the shop, order goods from the warehouse while in the shop, or do both simultaneously. For example, a customer can choose a pair of shoes in the shop and at the same time order hosing from the warehouse. "By the time he has picked the right shoes, the assembled and packaged hosing is already waiting for him at the checkout," explains Stephanie Maertin. PROLAG®World’s dedicated order types and sophisticated priority control make this possible. Goods can also be returned directly in the shop. The WMS automatically books the goods and returns them to goods receipt so that customers immediately receive their money back from the POS system. "The special thing about this is that we didn't have to program these processes. Instead we were able to get there purely by configuring our standard modules," says CIM’s Pirmin Weber.
Maertin: ‘WMS’ project’ a complete success
PROLAG®World manages the production facilities, shop and warehouse. "The fact that we can combine these three components in one software instead of using three systems gives us a great deal of process and IT security," Stephanie Maertin is happy to report. Digital process control also ensures a significant increase in inventory security and accuracy, she says. CIM's PROLAG®Go order picking system and the PROSEND® shipping system are fully integrated in the software standard and make everyday work routines easier thanks to paperless processes, optimised transactions and minimised handling times. Add-ons such as the business intelligence tool, dashboard and shipment generation make Maertin's processes even more transparent and secure. For Stephanie Maertin, the WMS project has been a complete success: "We have been working faster and more efficiently since the introduction of PROLAG®World. In addition, we feel fit for the future thanks to the wide product range offered by CIM and the modular scalability of PROLAG®World".
