Ernsting's family and Körber are continuously expanding their SAP environment
Hamburg, 06.02.25 - Ten years ago, Ernsting's family and Körber first relied on a cross-location, integrated warehouse and material flow control system using SAP EWM. Since then, the systems have been continuously modernized, expanded and renewed, and the possibilities of Extended Warehouse Management have been further expanded. With the implementation and integration of a new e-commerce warehouse, a fully automated small parts warehouse and three pocket sorters, Körber has raised the capacity, performance and dynamics of an SAP EWM-based logistics infrastructure to a new level by 2024.
Ernsting's family has a dense network of 1,925 stores in Germany and Austria, an online store and a mobile store and generates annual sales of almost 1.5 billion euros with textiles for the whole family. The stores are supplied via two distribution centers in Coesfeld and Coswig-Klieken, while the online business runs exclusively via Coesfeld. What began with a single “minipreis” test store has developed into one of the largest clothing retailers in the DACH region in around sixty years - and a pioneer in SAP-supported logistics.
From 2011, Ernsting's family worked with Körber to implement SAP EWM at both logistics locations in one of the most extensive EWM implementations of its time, and in terms of throughput, the largest in the world with up to 800,000 delivery items per day. Since then, Körber has continuously expanded and extended the logistics capacities at the company's distribution centers, and the SAP environment has grown with it.
At the heart of the logistics system is a 15-aisle mini-load warehouse with 290,000 storage locations and a capacity of 1,800 cartons/h, which Körber built in 2023 as one of the largest fashion mini-load warehouses in Europe using a silo design. A high-bay warehouse in Klieken and in Lette are also connected, along with various picking and replenishment workstations. In this constellation, the SAP MFS module for material flow control is being used for the first time in the small parts warehouse. The SAP MFS communicates with the PLCs of the conveyor technology and controls the routing of the cartons.
Thanks to the integrated module, all relevant data is available so that, for example, replenishment and picking can be seamlessly interlinked in SAP EWM. To guarantee and document the required high performance and availability, Körber implemented self-developed tools in SAP EWM and optimized existing functionalities for telegram and process processing. “SAP EWM is an optimal basisfor transparent and efficient management of our logistics,” says Frank ter Duis, IT Coordinator Logistics & Team Leader IT Logistics, Ernsting's family. “The Körber add-ons and optimizations ensure that it fits into our business processes, and not the other way around.”
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