Sfakianakis Group of Companies
Spare Parts & Accessories
Sfakianakis Group is one of the major importers and distributors of cars, motorcycles and spare parts in Greece and is listed in the Athens Stock Exchange. The main operation of the group is the importing and trading of cars, motorcycles and spare parts made by Suzuki and Cadillac, as well as of Daf trucks, Temsa coaches and Landini and Valpadana agricultural machinery. In the retail field, the activities of the Group include the trading of Opel, Ford, Mini, Volvo, Cadillac, Corvette, Hummer, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia cars, as well as Suzuki and BMW cars and motorcycles. After the acquisition of Mirkat Ltd, exclusive importer of Suzuki products in Bulgaria, the group became exclusive importer of Suzuki products for both Fyrom and Albania.
The challenge
Sfakainakis Group operates its own distribution center in Athens, Greece. It includes 2 main storage areas, one for the large - special size parts and one for the rest of spare parts. The large - special size parts are stored on Back - to -Back shelves while the rest of the parts are stored on a series of mezzanine levels / floors. The allocation of spare parts to the various mezzanine floors is based on their velocity starting from the fastest moving parts that are located on the ground floor up to the slowest moving parts that are located on the top mezzanine floor. The velocity of each part is dynamically updated based on ABC analysis.
The distribution center handles 54,000 active codes that are distributed to about 540 dealers all over Greece. There are around 1,300 lines received from suppliers and 1,700 order lines dispatched daily.
The large number of brand names supplied by the group combined with its extensive dealer network that demands high quality customer service and fast / accurate deliveries made apparent the need for a sophisticated Warehouse Management System (WMS) that would optimize the efficiency of the distribution center.
The solution
Warehouse Vision, the WMS arm of Mantis' Logistics Vision Suite, was selected after many months of market research as the logistics information system that would cover all the needs of the Sfakianakis Group.
The decision to select Mantis and Warehouse Vision was due to Mantis' extensive experience in successfully implementing logistics systems in the market sector of spare parts in many countries as well as due to the rich functionality and flexibility of Warehouse Vision in covering the sophisticated requirements of a spare parts distribution center. The analysis and implementation was done by a joint team of Mantis' consultants and Sfakianakis' key staff. The system, combined with several Radio Frequency terminals, went successfully live in 2008.
The benefits
In summary, spare parts, present a lot of special requirements. The benefits from the use of Warehouse Vision were:
- Real time tracking of spare parts using barcodes and scanners resulting in increase of stock accuracy
- Improved productivity and customer service via real time accurate management of the physical stock
- Significant reduction of back orders and obsolete stock
- Significant reduction in receiving and picking errors (in codes and quantities)
- Drastic reduction of the time required for receiving
- Optimization in storage location handling and capacity
- Automation of procedures
- Reduction of the time required for order handling
- A plethora of statistical data and report for decision support
- Resource productivity monitoring, evaluation and improvement
