Industry: Bread and Bakery Products
Cake mix expert Kathi portrays all business processes with the CSB-System. The software increases transparency and efficiency. In particular, Kathi saves a lot of time and money during picking and stocktaking by using scanners as the error rate could be minimized here.
With a sales share of 47.6 percent, Kathi is the market leader for ready-to-bake mixes in the new federal states, and the number 2 in all of Germany. One factor of success is their information technology. A turnkey solution by CSB-System replicates the entire business at Kathi in a single software. “In our company, communication has always been very good because of our lean structures and flat organization. But without the support of a powerful computer system, we would not be able to portray all processes of our company in a competitive way,” says Managing Director Marco Thiele.
IT controls the production
In cooperation with Sales, the production managers at Kathi establish a high-level production plan for the year. This plan is broken down to a month and further detailed with stock information from the warehouse and sales figures from the Sales department. After the detailed production schedule has been defined, Purchasing has sufficient time to order the needed raw materials. The required quantities result from the recipe and the number of products to be manufactured and are transmitted directly to the suppliers via the system. The staff in Goods Acceptance can call up the order data on their screens or with their hand-held terminals. After quality and quantity checks, the raw materials receive an internal label with EAN128 code. These labels enable scanner-based handling of the downstream processes at Kathi.
The main component quantities in the silos are entered via a specially designed interface to the system of machine manufacturer Zeppelin. The Zeppelin system weighs and mixes the raw materials for an order and fills them into individual packaging units. All process steps can be monitored centrally at the production control center or at the CSB-Racks. At the automatic packaging line, the finished individual packages are combined in sales units and stacked on pallets. After an internal label has been attached, the pallets are moved to the nearby logistics center for storing.
Zero errors in picking and stocktaking
The pallet storage has over 2,500 storage positions, and up to 3,000 pallets per month leave the warehouse during customer picking. The pickers work with radio scanners, which eliminate incorrect and double entries. “With the online picking solution by CSB, we were able to reduce the error rate to zero. It is so easy to use that even new employees without IT experience can be assigned to picking after a short time,” says Operations Manager Stefan Hartelt. Process reliability and speed are increased as the different weight, counting and packaging units are directly transferred to, and processed in, the ERP system.
During stocktaking, the hand-held terminals are also used for the correct determination of the stock on hand in the different warehouses. The warehouse staff is assigned different item groups for stocktaking. With the MDC device, they capture the pallet SSCC. The device displays the expected quantity according to the CSB-System. The employee counts the actual quantity and acknowledges or edits the displayed data. The actual quantity is then returned to the CSB-System.
Direct access to vital business information
Using the different reporting tools as well as the integrated coverage planning matrix of the CSB-System, Kathi can make important business decisions on the basis of well-founded analyses. Sales statistics, gross margin analyses and other reports: Management gets an overview of the current business situation at the press of a button, anytime. The available key indicators are analyzed in a multidimensional view, and the results are communicated to the different management levels at Kathi as required. At the same time, strategic input requirements are communicated to the staff by means of planning and budgeting. “As the individual modules are linked with each other, all employees can access the latest information at their workstations,” explains Hartelt.
