Simmonds Transport, NOM Dairies and Clydebuilt create a delicious recipe for success

“It’s the best investment made in a long time. It’s the sort of investment that not only saves the company money, but also helps drive the company forward.” – Neil Simmonds

Telford based Simmonds Transport have delighted one of their major customers by providing a completely seamless integration into their warehousing system. Simmonds have integrated their LocateIT WMS with NOM Dairies SAP, to facilitate a faster, real time flow of information between the two companies.

Strategically placed to serve the UK from the West Midlands, Simmonds Transport have been in business for 36 years, offering transport, warehousing and value added services such as contract packing.

Simmonds have expanded their operation over the years and increased their warehouse facility from 20,000 to 100,000 sq ft. During the years of working on the 20,000 sq ft site Simmonds were using a warehousing ‘bolt –on’ from a Transport Management System. Neil Simmonds, Sales Director at Simmonds, was working on the floor and quickly realised the limitations of the system in use, and more importantly he realised that if he was going to take the business forward, this definitely wasn’t the system to use.

LocateIT in Simmonds – the early years

Being a member of Palletline, the UK’s leading palletised distribution specialists, Neil asked his peers about the systems they were using with a view to selecting a new supplier. LocateIT WMS from Clydebuilt Solutions was chosen, and is currently in use at over 25% of Palletline members sites. LocateIT was chosen as it was far more advanced than the system they were using, and after seeing it in action in other sites Neil was impressed by the usability and user friendliness. In terms of functionality, LocateIT covered everything. Even now Neil comments that, ‘Constant system improvements every year enable confidence in the system,’ and he is ‘confident that it manages now and will continue to do so into the future’.

The initial implementation of the system afforded Simmonds immediate benefits. LocateIT helped to speed up all of their processes and allowed for easier access to more accurate information. Neil describes LocateIT as being clear and concise, and not complicated. The speed of loading orders and issuing picks increased significantly and of particular use to Simmonds was the Grid View, providing users with a graphical representation of the warehouse floor, with the ability to click on a location to view the status of pallets housed there.

Delivering Excellence

Simmonds Transport has an excellent reputation for delighting its customers, and is in the proactive realm of 3pl providers, constantly seeking new ways to engage with and satisfy customer needs.

Simmonds were approached by NOM Dairies, the Shropshire based dairy who manufacture high quality, great tasting yoghurts from natural ingredients, as they were looking for a new third party warehouse to store raw materials. NOM were impressed with how Simmonds were running the warehouse and decided to use them as their outsourced warehousing partner, and suggested that Simmonds implement a SAP terminal, and carry out all NOM work on that terminal. Looking to maintain consistency within their operations, and more importantly, not wanting to create any duplicate entry, Neil suggested that system integration between LocateIT and SAP would be the most effective route, as he knew that Clydebuilt had completed similar integration work before.

Working with NOM account managers within Simmonds, Steve Powell and Dave Smith, as well as Jamie Barr from Clydebuilt, Neil’s team helped define requirements with NOM staff. The whole process took 6 weeks from start to finish, and the day the link switched on Simmonds received 250 pallets into the warehouse, and despatched 50 – with no hic-ups. Neil said, ‘I was confident throughout that it would work having confidence in Clydebuilt, and at no point did I worry that it wouldn’t work’, he continued, ‘Clydebuilt’s experience in integration was fantastic. They gave specifications of file formats and helped NOM map out required fields and the data flow.’

Jamie Barr, Managing Director of Clydebuilt Solutions, added, ‘When Simmonds first approached us with the requirement to put together a full EDI integration in a matter of weeks, I was concerned – the timescales were short, and there was no margin for error.’

He continued, ‘I believe the secret to the success of this project was that our development and project staff formed an extremely effective and efficient team with key staff from Simmonds and NOM, the communications were good and any problems were raised and eliminated with minimum of disruption.’

Utilising Clydebuilt’s RF processes with the link, Staff at Simmonds virtually don’t have to touch the computers any more. NOMs system sends an EDI file to Simmonds that automatically creates  pre Advised Goods In, and this in turn triggers the automatic printing of a Goods In check sheet. The operator is also notified of the order via an email. The picking operation is similar, an order comes in electronically, a pick list is automatically printed and issued to the operator.

Steve Powell, NOMS account manager at Simmonds says, ‘It’s faster and easier. For put away it’s virtually impossible to put pallets away in the wrong location. On the pick its fool proof. Errors could only be made if the operators physically overwrite something.’

Some of the success of the project can be attributed to Neil getting complete buy in from his staff first. Before implementing a new solution Neil quite rightly is of the view that he should understand the main principles of how it works. To that end, he researched some information that was historically given to him from Clydebuilt and was trained on the Do’s, Dont’s, In’s and Out’s or bar coding and RF. He communicated his knowledge to his staff who agreed on the benefits and from the start everyone at Simmonds was ready to welcome the change.

As for NOM, they are noticing the massive benefits throughout all of their interactions with Simmonds. The fast flow of information between companies has made massive improvements in processes, by the removal of spreadsheets and manual data entry. NOM has gained extra man hours since the introduction of the system, and the length of time taken to receive a full load has reduced from 3 – 4 hours to 20 – 30 minutes!

Focusing on the future

The whole integration process has changed Simmonds Transports view for the future. The ability to streamline the operations with so many added benefits including the speed of delivery,  and an increase of accuracy, it is obvious to Simmonds that the way forward is to bring more customers on board with the same principles. Since the system went live 3-4 weeks ago potential clients have visited site and Simmonds are now practically winning business without trying due to system expertise.

Summing up the whole integration, Neil concludes, ‘Fantastic. For such an important fast flowing customer as NOM, with their 24/7 production facility, I knew how important it was to get it right.  It’s the best investment made in a long time. It’s the sort of investment that not only saves the company money, but also helps drive the business forward’.