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Baktotaal Bouwhuis is on a roll with growth of ecommerce. Time to bake!
Baktotaal Bouwhuis sells under the slogan: Baktotaal Bouwhuis “really everything for baking!” over 10,000 products in the field of baking. Thoughtful logistics processes streamline daily purchasing and sales. “The growth of ecommerce has done us no harm. We can grow along healthily because professional automation optimally facilitates our processes,” said Joost Dijkman of Baktotaal Bouwhuis.
Moving four times as much work
Just a few years ago, the company worked entirely on paper and by hand. The team was small and knew everything themselves, a well-oiled machine. Only, as ecommerce took off, the web shop quickly gained popularity as well. Joost: “We were forced to think about digitizing the warehouse. We are glad we made the transformation at the time. Our people now pick four times as many pick lines in the same amount of time as before. The warehouse has also been further professionalized. All products are easy to find and stock is always in order. Fortunately, because we can’t afford any mistakes.”
"Now our people pick four times as many pick lines in the same amount of time as before. All products are easy to find and stock is always in order."
Joost Dijkman, Project employee ICT, Baktotaal Bouwhuis
Joost continues: “Goods come in here all day long. These are prepared in the inbound hall, then everything is checked in the morning. All goods are entered by order number via Zebra TC52 hand scanners, supplied from CaptureTech, and checked against purchasing. We have an immediate picture of whether we have received too few or too many pieces.”
Mistakes are killing
Baktotaal Bouwhuis has a wide variety of customers. Add to that its extensive assortment and you understand the importance of having its products and processes mapped out. The scanners combined with the warehouse management software, Ceyenne from Diract IT, ensure that inventories are checked and translated directly into inventory and the web shop. Joost: “The Ceyenne WMS also helps us when picking. Think of suggested walking routes, suggestions for package sizes and alerts for best-before dates.”
Customers can immediately order the product that came in that day. Also, customers receive an e-mail when products, which were out of stock, are back in stock. Once purchase orders are processed through the scanners, employees are shown, at the entitlement level, follow-up tasks such as putting the goods in stock at the correct location. Exactly where to go, including the most efficient walking route, is determined by the software and translated into the intuitive application on the Zebra scanner.
Order picking has changed
Not only warehousing and storage, order picking has also undergone a transition. Baktotaal Bouwhuis has invested heavily in an efficient “pick to box strategy” and, thanks to Zebra scanners and the WMS, is now working with multi-order picking. This has significantly improved productivity. “We now know in advance which goods need to be shipped in which type of shipping box. As a result, we pick directly into the correct shipping box.” The scanner application notifies the employee how many shipping boxes to pick. This is automatically calculated based on the order size and dimensions of products in that order. “We measured all the products. A big job, but one that paid off in practice.”
"We now know in advance which goods should be shipped in which type of shipping box. As a result, we pick orders directly into the correct shipping box."
Joost Dijkman, Project employee ICT, Baktotaal Bouwhuis
Opportunities and challenges
Baktotaal Bouwhuis sees both opportunities and challenges with the continued growth of e-commerce. Opportunities lie in packaging and shipping even more efficiently. Joost takes batter bowls as an example. “Stacking these or putting goods in them already saves a lot of space. We are going to make further efforts to optimize packaging. This saves on shipping costs and is more sustainable.”
“We are proud of where we are today. The number of items that an average order contains has grown and something that many a webshop envies. Also, we are now connected to bol.com. Partly due to the cooperation with Diract and CaptureTech, we were fully prepared for that.”
Joost concludes, “Now that we are used to working with scanners, we are looking together with CaptureTech at how we can further optimize our shop floor processes. We have already conducted a pilot for this with a “hands-free” solution. In addition, when we move into our new building, we plan to deploy other optimized techniques. All with the goal of further improving efficiency in the future.”
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