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QC
Logistics
5
. The Project
5.1 eBusiness Solution
5.1.1 Business Dimension
Following lengthy discussions between the team and various suppliers, the
key business requirements for QC’s
system were identified as:
- The ability
to manage stock in the warehouse – This was
a key attribute for any software package selected
by QC. Given that 80% of QC’s clients were
in the pharmaceutical sector, the company had to
be as near to 100% accuracy as possible when performing
inventory checks.
- Traceability
– Again, due to the nature of the pharmaceutical
business, traceability was vital. The ability to
know from which batch a certain product came, how
long it had been in the warehouse and who put it
on the truck, was vital.
- User
friendly – The system had to be simple to use.
If it wasn’t, staff acceptance would have been
low.
- Easy
to integrate – The new system needed to have
the ability to be able to integrate with other customers’
systems.
- Support
for bar coding – In order to ease the checking
in and out of stock and the tracking of that stock
within the warehouse, bar coding was a vital piece
of functionality for QC. This would also reduce
the amount of paperwork required to look after the
warehouse.
- High
security – The system had to be secure enough
to meet the ongoing security requirements of the
quality departments within many of QCs clients.
The solution
that QC chose to fulfil these requirements was IonData
Lite, an off-the-shelf inventory tracking system designed
by Dun Laoghaire based developer Ion Technologies. The
software combines a PC (that carries the stock database)
and a handheld scanner that is used on the shop floor.
At time of writing, the IonData Lite was being piloted
in QCs Slieverue facility with a view to rolling it
out across the organisation. As IonData Lite was an
off-the-shelf package, as soon as it was loaded onto
a PC in QC logistics, it provided the organisation with
a fully functioning stock system which allowed the warehouse
staff to:
- Receive
Goods – When goods were received at goods in,
they were scanned into the handheld computer –
this data was uploaded to the PC on a regular basis.
- Move
and put away goods – Goods were scanned and,
as they were stored in the warehouse, a shelf location
was also entered. Again, this data was entered into
the PC. The system was designed to printboth bay
and racking labels for easy recognition of specific
stock. A timesaving feature of the software was
the ability for it to automatically allocate stock
to a specific area of the warehouse (if that particular
item is always stored there for example).
-
Bills and shipping – the system allowed staff
to download a pick list of stock items for a particular
order along with a location reference. This allowed
for fast and easy picking of orders and made mistakes
far less likely. Additionally, IonData Lite printed
shipping labels for that order.
-
Stock checking – The use of the handheld computer
made stock inventories (where the entire warehouse
is checked) and cycle checks (where a specific area
was checked) far less time consuming and more accurate.
After the specific area was scanned, the data was
downloaded to the PC and, rather than simply updating
the data, the system reconciled the two sets of
data and printed an issue report allowing the user
to resolve any issues identified.
Security was
a key issue in selection of a system for QC as the sensitivity of information
being held was often incredibly high. In order to adhere to these requirements,
IonData Lite had a strict security hierarchy. Users logged into the system
with a username and password and were only able to see information pertinent
to their requirements. This logging on process (which was applicable to
both the PC and the handheld scanners) also allowed for traceability in
the event of an issue.
Reporting
One of the most important aspects of QC’s stock system was the ability
to produce reports. Reports were produced once a week, on a Friday morning
(in Adobe Acrobat format - .pdf) and hosted on a shared server within the
organisation. The management team was then able to view the reports at their
leisure. The next step for QC Logistics will be to add in an extra piece
of functionality that would allow any user (with sufficient security access)
to request reports from the data warehouse, from their own networked PC,
as and when required.
IonData Lite can produce 23 different types of standard report, including:
- Product
reports
- Stock
location Reports
- Customer
Reports
- Supplier
Reports and
- Shipping
Reports
The reports
could be saved from the system as .RTF (to be viewed in Microsoft Word),
as .PDF (Adobe Acrobat) or .CSV (Comma separated file for export in Microsoft
Excel). These reports were forwarded out to the relevant client on an as-needed
basis.
Integration
In addition to the IonData system, QC Logistics also ran a ‘terminal’
for each of three clients. These three terminals allowed the warehouse staff
to tie directly into the stock-database of each of those clients. This meant
that the client could allow access to their data without the problem of
having to integrate into another system (and face the security issues that
go with that). It also meant that the client had real-time access to data
on stock levels in the warehouse (as if it were there own on-site warehouse).
The long term aim of the team in QC Logistics is to integrate those systems
into their own system and thus have one point of access for any of the staff
in the warehouse – an IonData terminal. There are a number of issues
that have to be addressed before this can happen.
5.1.2 Technical Dimension
Unlike most systems where the software is hosted on a server and accessed
from a PC from anywhere in the organisation, IonData Lite was designed to
run on one standalone PC and was propagated with information from one handheld
scanner. The PC resided in the warehouse manager’s office and was uploaded
to, and downloaded from, on a regular basis.
The very nature of an off-the-shelf system is that it can be implemented
very quickly with little or no effect on surrounding IT infrastructure.
The fact that QC Logistics was only piloting IonData Lite meant that huge
changes in that IT infrastructure were not made.
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