Case History

Via G. Carducci, 23,
21010 - Arsago Seprio - VA

+39 0331 299001

caterlinespa@caterlinespa.it
www.caterlinespa.it

Caterline Spa

Food & Beverage

The Caterline company was established in 1981 to continue in corporate form the food trading business started in the 1940s and still run by the De Bernardi family. In the first 15 years of activity, the company grew with the supply of long-life food products to collective catering operators (hospitals, schools, company canteens) throughout northern Italy.

In 1997 Caterline together with three companies specializing respectively in the supply of dairy products, fresh meats and frozen and deep-frozen products, forms the company Gruppo 21 Srl with the aim of expanding the range of products by also presenting itself to operators in the Ho.Re.Ca channel (hotels, restaurants, self-service, pizzerias and bars) as a global supplier of all commodities.

Today Caterline has 4 locations with about 120 employees and agents and has a fleet of 30 owned vehicles to serve customers in northern and central Italy

Products:

WMS

StockSystem

WAREHOUSE LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

Software for the management of logistics processes.

Integrated technologies:

Voice

Caterline Spa

Caterline's numbers

A company specializing in the supply of products, both food and non-food, used by professional caterers in foodservice (hospitals, schools, canteens of large and medium-sized companies) and commercial catering (restaurants, self-service, pizzerias and hotels).

LOGISTICS DEPOTS

REFERENCES

MOTOR VEHICLE FLEET

Logistics Experience

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"In the restaurant supply chain, we are halfway between the producer and the end user, presenting ourselves as a single point of contact capable of providing a complete and extremely varied range of products. It is precisely this ability that is our strength."

Federico De Bernardi, EDP Manager Caterline

4 LOGISTICS DEPOTS

Arsago Seprio (VA): is the main warehouse, with room-temperature areas, 5 cold rooms and offices totaling more than 10,000 square meters. All orders for the northwest area are prepared and shipped
Casorate Sempione (VA): storage of seasonal product stocks.

Vanzaghello (MI): storage and order preparation of all frozen and deep-frozen products
Aosta, for all deliveries in the Valley.

NEEDS

Prior to the currently used solution, Caterline had a management software that was outdated and inadequate to support warehouse management as well. In particular, the company needed a new tool capable of guaranteeing batch traceability and expiration control, with particular reference to food products; in addition, there was a need to manage certain constraints and respond to specific needs of its customers, such as the mandatory requirement for canteens in the catering industry to have, in turn, effective traceability of the products used in the kitchens. In parallel, the need to improve customer service as a whole with regard to delivery times and accuracy in fulfilling orders led Caterline to evaluate, alongside the new management system, a WMS (Warehouse Management System) software to support warehouse management.

At the end of 2009 Caterline decided to purchase StockSystem warehouse management software, interfaced with Voice technology to manage dry and later variable-weight fresh. In January 2011 Caterline switched from the previous management software to Microsoft Dynamics Nav, interfaced with StockSytem, without interrupting warehouse operations.

PROJECT GOALS

Increase warehouse productivity and accuracy
Make work in storage and picking more efficient
Manage Traceability and expiration dates of products
Reduce fulfillment time
Reduce picking errors
Increase the level of customer service
Unify logistics systems

SOLUTIONS

Caterline installed:

StockSystem
Add - on SMA.I.L:) Voice

Terminals:

6 Motorola MC9090 hand-held terminals
7 LXE MX8 hand-held terminals
17 Vocollect Talkman T2X voice terminals.

Add -on WMS: SMA.I.L:) Voice

The project was implemented in three phases:

Implementation of StockSystem and SMA.I.L:) Voice for Dry Management
Implementation of StockSystem for variable-weight fresh management
Transition from previous management system to Microsoft Dynamics Nav

StockSystem for Dry Product

Implementation of StockSystem and SMA.I.L:) Voice to manage the picking operator of dry products

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2010

Analysis:
warehouse layout;
typology of materials;
integration with central information system;
input and storage flows;
flows of withdrawals and shipments.

Operation in Receiving - Storage and Keeping in Stock began immediately, because it was decided to keep all the stock as stock, avoiding inventory.

APRIL/JUNE 2010

Inventory picking, installation, testing and voice startup

19 JULY 2010

START-UP

StockSystem for Fresh Product

Implementation of StockSystem for the management of variable weight fresh product

SEPTEMBER/NOVEMBER 2010

Variable weight fresh product is handled using LXE lightweight handheld terminals for fast and accurate weight reading with decimals.

Microsoft Dynamics Nav

Switch from previous Management System to Microsoft Dynamics Nav

DECEMBER 2010 - 4 JANUARY 2011

Without wasting a single day of work in the warehouse!

Meat warehouse

The meat cuts are produced in an external warehouse connected to the SMA.I.L.:) StockSystem, which then processes the orders in this way: Microsoft Dynamics Nav sends orders to SMA.I.L:) StockSytem, which opens the order by sending information to the external meat warehouse, which cuts, packs and delivers the goods to the Caterline warehouse, which performs picking and prepares for shipping. SMA.I.L:) StockSystem completes the order and transfers the data to Microsoft Dynamics Nav.

Travel planning in the order book

Through the analysis of weights and volumes created SMA.I.L:) StockSystem creates tour groups that allow to follow the progress of the shipment at any time.

Achieved results:

~ 5,000 withdrawals with Voice
~ 2,000 pickups with RF terminals
56,000 items shipped
10,000 packages handled
73,000 kg of food handled
Decrease in material search time
Decreased inspection time
Immediate traceability of incoming, outgoing and in-stock lots and expiration dates
Limitation of errors

Possibility of immediate feedback of disputes concerning stock preparation by customer or carrier
Real-time warehouse inventory
Immediate control of correspondence between accounting load/unload and physical warehouse load/unload (StockSystem and NAV)
Increased accountability of warehouse operators, particularly the picking operator, as each individual movement is tracked
More functional management of returns
More orderly working method