"We have to be able to effectively process one-line orders, thousand-line orders, and everything in between," says Brad Moszkiewicz, manager of operations for the national parts center of Panasonic Services Company (PSC). A highly flexible warehouse management system helps his team process that range of orders with less labor and more accurately than before.

This PSC facility is the sole source for service parts in North America for Panasonic, Technics, and Quasar consumer and commercial products. The 228,000 sq ft DC serves a highly diverse customer base. There are more than 300,000 storage locations in the PSC facility, stocking 110,000 part numbers, with over 3 million pieces.

"We have a lot of material on the floor at one time," says Moszkiewicz. "Our warehouse management system has to be capable of putting the work out to the floor, directing the work through the warehouse, handling a complex mix of orders efficiently, and be invisible to the customer."

With a fluctuating and somewhat unpredictable workload, he adds, "we operate in a world of controlled chaos."

A warehouse management system (WMS) was selected for the facility from among 10 vendors bidding for the system to control that chaos.

The PSC facility has a mix of carousel and traditional rack/bin locations. There are 14 pick-to-light carousels. The WMS handles inbound and outbound conveyor routing along with storage and picking in the carousels. Included is a ten-position tote matrix, which permits batching of dozens of putaways or simultaneously picks of up to ten different shipments in totes. Aisle vehicles and forklifts handle putaways and picking from rack and bin locations. Handheld radio frequency devices confirm piece picks, putaways, and transfers in rack areas.

"Our main goals – in addition to getting off of our mainframe computer – were to drive down labor costs and be more flexible and responsive to customers," says Moszkiewicz. "We started with 82 people in the parts center. We're now down to around 60 – a 27% reduction."

Besides increasing productivity and reducing labor costs, the WMS has enabled PSC to improve customer service levels. And errors have been reduced by a factor of four, from 1% to just 0.25%.

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