Seafield Logistics drives cost savings with WMS from RedPrairie

Tuesday, 28 October 2008

Best practice Warehouse Management Solution will mean benefits across the Seafield Logistics estate

Seafield Logistics, one of the UK's major third party supply chain, logistics solutions and contract packing specialists, has cut operational costs following the implementation of a Warehouse Management Solution from RedPrairie, a world leading consumer driven optimisation company.

The solution has already gone live in two of Seafield Logistics' sites, with a third implementation planned for March 2009. Seafield Logistics has also selected RedPrairie's Duty Management solution to run its bonded warehousing.

Justin Hunt, General Manager, Key Accounts, who heads up the IT department at Seafield Logistics, said: "The implementation has led to massive cost reductions, and in the long term we are looking to put in place cross-training, and standardisation of processes across the company in order to derive these benefits in all our sites."

He continued: "We selected RedPrairie as they are a good fit with our business.  They went out of their way on the initial proposal, and we felt that they understood what we wanted to achieve from the project.  They were also competitive on price and the functionality that the solution offers represented excellent value for money.  We wanted a solution that could be rolled out across multi-sites.  We wanted to control the ownership, and be able to decentralise skills across IT, so that expertise could be spread across our estate.  We were looking to drive down the initial cost of ownership, and importantly, offer improved service and more flexibility to our customers in terms of being able to interface data in and out of the system."

Seafield Logistics previously used a bespoke system, but this was proving expensive to maintain, with high on-going costs whenever interface development was required for customers.

The first implementation was at the company's Worksop site, which is multi-site and multi-client.  A range of operations are carried out at these sites, including full pallet picks, alternative case packing and different types of storage, for example APR and bulk.  Hunt said: "This was the most complicated of all the rollouts, and we wanted to do this one first to see how the system coped.  The Worksop site is also where most of our WMS experience is based."

The second implementation was at Seafield Logistics' brand new build warehouse.  The project went extremely well, and Hunt commented: "This project rolled out very quickly, as any teething problems had been ironed out at Worksop."

The next rollout is at Seafield Logistics' Northwich site, which will be for a key customer.  The project involves building interfaces and real time stock management, and will be driven by SSCC functionality, with a go-live planned for March 2009.

Martin Hiscox, Vice Chairman of the Board, Managing Director and President International, RedPrairie, said: "We are delighted with the great results that Seafield Logistics is realising as a result of implementing RedPrairie's Warehouse Management Solution.  We are confident that the system will continue to deliver its customers excellent service."

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