INTERNATIONAL SKIN AND BEAUTY CARE BRANDS PRODUCER GOES LIVE WITH CATALYST INTERNATIONALS WIRELESS RF WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION

The UK arm of Beiersdorf, the producer of famous brands like Nivea, Atrix and Elastoplast, has gone live with a major wireless RF solution at its UK distribution centre, today announced Catalyst International, a global provider of supply chain execution solutions. The solution delivered by Catalyst utilises SAPConsole and Catalyst Internationals SAP Transactions to manage in-bound, picking, replenishment and despatch.

Beiersdorf appointed Catalyst to develop a wireless RF solution in summer 2005. Its main UK 100,000-square foot distribution centre in Birmingham was using a paper-based system to handle the movement of goods through the warehouse. The system will now enable Beiersdorf to further improve stock accuracy, as well as providing a real-time view of both inventory and task allocation in the warehouse.

Martin Kelly, Head of Logistics, Beiersdorf UK said: We have ambitious business growth goals and this solution enables us to handle higher volumes in our distribution centre. The Catalyst SAP Transactions solution seamlessly integrates handheld radio terminals on the warehouse floor with our SAP system, so we now have full visibility of product movements and greater flexibility on how we allocate our staff resources at all times. The success of the go live confirms our decision to go with the Catalyst solution which is open, required less equipment to set up and was implemented smoothly and rapidly.

The new wireless warehouse management solution is based on the SAPConsole, a native radio frequency (RF) data collection application for SAP R/3 that addresses mainly warehouse management processes. The solution takes full advantage of how Catalyst has developed a unique library of transactions to extend the functionality of the SAPConsole throughout the enterprise. These enhancements are seamlessly added to the SAPConsole and work with RF devices without requiring any extra networking investments or middleware.

Steve Barker, VP of Sales and Marketing, EMEA for Catalyst International comments: The go-live of our solution for Beiersdorf is further confirmation of our leadership in wireless enabling of SAP applications for major FMCG brands. We worked very closely with Beiersdorf to tailor our technology to their requirements. Our technologys modularity and openness combined with Catalysts proven expertise as SAP experts and project managers ensured that the project was completed to a tight deadline. Beiersdorf now has successfully transitioned from a paper-based system to a state of the art RF supply chain execution solution that supports their growth targets through seamless integration with enterprise resource planning systems, maximisation of warehouse resources, and full and accurate visibility of stock movements.