The total efficiency of the warehouse doubled at Finnish Tevella Oy

The Finnish Tevella Oy, founded in 1984, is a growth-oriented and internationally networked company that develops and markets play and educational equipment, with which Finnish children can learn at daycare centers and schools in an interesting and versatile way. In spring 2014, Tevella was preparing to move to new facilities and in connection with this, a comprehensive outside opinion about the company’s in-house logistics processes was sought. Leanware performed a prestudy on the company’s warehouse operations.

“We wanted an opinion from Finland’s leading in-house logistics and process expert, who can bravely challenge and question our operations and processes using Lean methods.

It was clear already at the beginning that we would be needing a WMS to work alongside our current ERP. Leanware convinced us with their skills and references that they could provide us with the necessary outside opinion, without forgetting the systems in the background.”
CEO, Jyri-Jukka Ääri | Tevella Oy

This is how the total efficiency of the warehouse was improved and processes were updated

The results of the prestudy confirmed the company’s understanding of the needs for change in logistics, and in the fall of 2015, the definition of LeanwareWMS for the company was begun. Leanware brought insight also to the beginning of the process to improve purchasing and sales. The purchasing and sales process was made real-time and transparent, so that the company was able to purchase and sell the right products at the right time. This is how the company can control costs and stock value.

Fairly soon after implementing LeanwareWMS, Tevella noticed how picking and delivery errors decreased, delivery times shortened and reception lead times and overall efficiency improved significantly. Concrete benefits and changes for the company were brought by:

• The company’s operations have become more efficient and quicker using accurate, real-time stock balances, and warehouse staff need not make extra trips to make sure that the balances are correct. At the same time, the need for an annual massive stock taking process was eliminated.
• Dynamic warehouse locations, item placement and volume control helped achieve a more efficient use of space and the shelving and picking processes were sped up significantly. FIFO is also realized better and more reliably when the system manages warehouse operations.
• Group picking was used to simultaneously pick several orders directly into the boxes that were sent, which made both the picking and dispatch process faster.
• Automatic picking lists used on tablets guide and force picking the correct orders in the correct sequence, and the pickers are no longer able to choose only orders they like. Additionally, the management no longer has to spend a couple of hours a day printing and organizing lists.

LeanwareWMS was used to improve the overall efficiency of the warehouse and to update processes to meet current needs. Tevella and Leanware will continue their cooperation in developing in-house logistics.

Results

• Overall efficiency of the warehouse has doubled
• Delivery time is significantly shorter
• Backorder management has improved and also their number has dropped significantly
• Improved picking precision
• More transparency