Mario Díaz

IT Manager

Productos Fernández S.A.

Oracle Warehouse Management in a

Highly Automated Distribution Center

for Frozen and Fresh Food

Company Background

Productos Fernández S.A has been in the Chilean market

for more than 100 years dedicated to processing and

marketing fresh and frozen food products, such as: ham,

sausages, bacon, hamburger, etc.

Significant investments throughout the last years in four

production plants, thirteen distribution terminals located in

major cities throughout the country and three distribution

centers

Types of Products:

• Ham, sausages, bacon, salami

• Meats : pork, chicken and beef

• Hamburger, nuggets

• Fresh and Frozen pizza

• Cheese

• Frozen vegetables

Chilean Market Share

Our Brands & Products

Distribution throughout Chile

By the Numbers

- 4 Manufacturing Plants in Talca

- 13 Distribution Centers

- 230 daily trucks depart from Distribution Centers

- 500 Unique Items

- 5000 Kilometers ( 3,100 miles) – distance between

northern most and southern most DC’s in Arica and

Punta Arenas.

- 10,000 Sales Orders a day

- 40,000 Customers regularly served

Journey to a better Distribution System

Key Business Challenges

- Minimize warehousing costs through central distribution center.

- Maximize worker efficiency

- Maximize transportation by shipping standard weight products in pallets

- Minimize effort in pool-point by allowing efficient deconsolidation

- Extend selling time for our salesmen

- Have a new distribution center to support our business for the next 15

years

- Meet and exceed our customer’s requirements

Goals achieved :

• Traceability : From creation to consumption

• FIFO Processing : Perishable items

• Accurate Inventory : Products available to sell

• Wave planning & visibility into warehouse tasks.

Issues remaining

• Picking for variable weight product was very

cumbersome.

• Standard weight product was not being bulked across

orders.

• Replenishment was not working satisfactorily

• Wms System was customized, so upgrades were

impossible.

Dec-2012

•Oracle WMS Implementation

Nov-2015

•WMS Productivity Improvements

Mar-2016

•WMS in new Plant & Sorter Integration

Journey to a better Distribution System

Goals achieved

• Improvement in handling of catch weight

• Cut transaction time for picking variable weight

items

• Enhanced Rules for Bulk Picking

• Pick full pallets for multiple orders going on a

single truck.

• Improvement in Shipping Efficiencies: Truck loading.

• Improvement in productivity in existing transactions

through mobile form extensions & personalizations.

• Remove customizations by implementing extensions

& personalizations that are upgradeable.

Dec-2011

•Oracle WMS Implementation

Nov-2015

•WMS Productivity Improvements

Mar-2016

•WMS in new Plant & Sorter Integration

Journey to a better Distribution System

New Distribution Center – 2016

New Central Distribution Center in Talca

• 12,000 Sq. Meters facility (39,360 feets)

• 6 picking zones with 5 levels each.

Intelligrated sorter that moves products to

staging.

• 21 Staging Lanes & 14 dock doors

• An automated ASRS for frozen product

Key IT Challenges

• Efficiently integrate picking process with

sorter infrastructure & ASRS.

• Warehouse wave release / planning based

on transportation plan.

• Customer specific shelf life requirements

• Pallet Building / Truck Load sequencing to

simplify delivery.

Goals

• Implement new picking process for leveraging sorter

infrastructure.

• Palletization logic for outbound shipments.

• Integration with Automated Frozen Warehouse.

• De-consolidation /

• Integration between Oracle Wms database and

SqlServer Sorter Interface Tables.

Areas for further improvement

• Leverage Advanced Catch Weight in 12.2 in place of

the current extension to handle catch weight in 12.1

Dec-2011

•Oracle WMS Implementation

Nov-2015

•WMS Productivity Improvements

Jul-2016

•WMS in new Plant & Sorter Integration

Journey to a better Distribution System

Integration with Sorter Infraestructure

Picking process for : Std Units, Variable Units and Variable Carton

• Every tote or case has a label

• Label contains the Staging lane required.

• No tech integration. However Sorter will read the label and divert the S.Lane

Picking process for Std Carton

• Release wave in Oracle Wms (user driven)

• A Interface Release Form was created to help the user to manage the

Staging Lane & Dock door and finally populate the Sorter Header & Detail

Interface Tables.

• Interface Detail table: Wave, Production group ID, Staging Lane and Qty

• Summary of the label scanned is provided in a third table. Just information

from Sorter to Oracle

Integration with Sorter Infraestructure

Interface Release Form

Goals

• In a single application, the idea was

– To help the users to easily manage the wave

– To have visibility about the wave, items, staging lane and dook doors.

– Ability to create multiples combinations to group the items.

– To assign the staging lane and dock door

– To integrate with the Sorter database (fresh items) and with the Case

Dispenser solution (Frozen Items)

Std Carton/Units Picking Process

for Sorter Infraestructure

Variable Carton Picking Process

for Sorter Infraestructure

Variable Unit Picking Process

for Sorter Infraestructure

Pick & Pass

Scenarios for picking

• Single customer. All picks from a single zone.

• Single customer. All items fit in a single tote.

• Single customer. All item don’t fit in a single tote. More than one tote.

• Multiples sales order in a tote.

Solution

• Mobile device indicates if item should be in bag or tote.

• Bag label printed. Multiples order can be in one tote.

• If multi zone required, Tote pick & pass label printed.

• If tote is full, Tote full (F) label printed.

Variable Unit Picking Process

for Sorter Infraestructure

Pick & Pass

Packing Solution

The idea was to easily create the pallet entity, based on the Pallet #, which was

printed previously and associate every tote or case scanning the label which

was printed during the picking process.

Finally help de-consolidation when the pallet reached final distribution center.

Full Conveyor’s View

3. Pick & Pass

picking for

Variable Wt.

Items

2. Bulk Picking

for Standard

Wt. Items

4. Sorter diverts product to

Packing Lanes

6. Packing

Solution for

Pallet Building

5. Automated

Storage

Retrieval

(ASRS)

Picking for

Frozen Product

7. Truck Load &

Ship Confirm

1. Inbound

Dock. Full

Pallet

Replenishment

Some Metrics

Currently– We daily move 380 tons or 57000 carton

– 10,000 sales order with 40,000 customers

– 2 ½ Work shift with 34 pickers by shift. 85 pickers in total

In the old distribution center– We are still moving 260 tons

– Productivity: 18 tons per hour

In the new distribution center with WMS/Conveyor– We are moving 120 tons

– Current productivity: 24 tons per hour

– Projection end of the year: 2 Work shift with 34 pickers by shift. 68 pickers in total

Keys to Success

• Right people

• Get the right implementation partner

• Internal resources with the prior Ebs experience

• Executive support

• Stable release

• Multiple iterations of testing

• Small, but focused team

• Adapt EBS best practices, but not blindly

Why Oracle WMS worked for PF

• Ability to handle high volume of shipments

• Ability to model multiple Picking processes for different product types &

facility types

• Wave-planning / Wave Release workbench

• Powerful of Rules Engine capable of modeling user requirements.

• Ability to Personalize / Extend & Integrate various aspects of the solution

without impacting patching / maintenance.

Implementation Partner

Moscone West

Booth #3728

Thank you!.

Q & A