Costa Logistics leaping to the Front - WMS Upgrade commences

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Costa Logistics, one of Australia's leading providers of fresh produce storage and logistics, has invested $4m to overhaul its warehouse management system throughout its sites.  As a result the company has achieved significant uplifts in productivity.

 

One of the greatest challenges for logistics providers today is being able to respond to increasing pressure from customers for flexible volumes to meet consumer demand. Costa Logistics decided to upgrade their existing Manhattan solution to take advantage of some of the greatly improved functionality and labour saving modifications of the latest version of the WMiS platform.  This advanced capability will enable Costa to anticipate stock fluctuations, plan proactively and satisfy customer requirements.

 

Michael Ristevski, Logistics Information Systems Manager responsible for the implementation of the system across the business, explains:  "We needed to upgrade to an integrated platform with a full e-business capability to provide real time stock visibility for our customers.  The Manhattan system met our functionality requirements and fits in with our existing architecture and many of our customers' existing networks.

 

"The EDI communication will facilitate the two-way integration with our customers to be able to receive advance visibility of inbound stock, plan the resources to handle it as well as pick the product and dispatch it all to a tight timetable. With this advanced capability we will be able to deliver higher service levels and greater customer satisfaction."

 

Costa is configuring the upgrade at is Derrimut site is Victoria.  After fine tuning and operational tweaking to further improve productivity and systems reporting, it is ready to roll out across all Costa's sites across Australia. The expected completion date for this mammoth project is scheduled for September 2009.

 

According to Tim Bolam, CEO Costa Logistics, advanced planning is fundamental to ensure multi-site compatibility and avoid costly system failures. "We conducted an audit of each facility to benchmark financials, staffing and productivity rates and reviewed the existing IT infrastructure to determine where improvements were needed. We then developed a detailed implementation plan to ensure best practice was adhered to and compliance to the overall system architecture was achieved.

 

To deliver the system to each location, a dedicated Manhattan roll out team was formed. This is led by Anthony Jackson and supported by Michael Ristevski, Logistics System Manager for Costa Logistics.  Together with key personnel from each site, their main objective will be to communicate the instructions of the system to all employees and ensure harmonized approach is achieved.

 

Tim Bolam, CEO Costa Logistics, comments: "This investment represents our commitment to providing our customers with an exceptional level of service underpinned by a streamlined and efficient throughput. It's a significant development in our growth as a company.

 

Costa Logistics has logistics centers in Tasmania, Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, and Victoria which is also the home of the corporate headquarters for Costa Logistics.