A second Tradeteam site is running Calidus-e after the warehouse management system went live at its new 140,000 sq. ft. greenfield development at Stretton near Burton-on-Trent, as part of the deal with Open Business Solutions announced in February.

The first site at Workington in Cumbria went live only a month before. The sites represent two extremes.  At 20,000 sq ft, Workington is a relatively small transhipment depot mostly for the Jennings brands of beers while Stretton is a national distribution centre.
 
Calidus-e functions for receiving, picking, despatch, transhipping, stock accounting and on-line interfacing are all included in the first phase.  The next phase is to develop additional functions and interfaces to sales order processing systems used by Tradeteam's new customers. Both sites employ the latest radio frequency equipment including Symbol hand-held and truck-mounted terminals.

As part of Tradeteam's £9 million expansion project, the contract was initially for 19 sites but has since been extended to include an extra 6 sites with the project lasting three years.  With breaks for Christmas peaks, this equates to almost one implementation a month.

Through better control of stocks and improved operational efficiency, Tradeteam is aiming to cut costs and take-on more business.  Ultimately, it will have total visibility of stock across its entire supply chain and so better able to manage transhipments.  Cutting the amount and distance stock is trunked promises to reduce costs significantly. 

Calidus-e will also improve stock accuracy.  A key feature for Tradeteam is perpetual inventory since stocks are counted when they reach their lowest levels.  This not only saves time and money, but also improves the accuracy of stock counts.

www.openbusinesssolutions.com