Reckitt Benckiser is a worldwide company. Their product are sold worldwide in more than 180 countries and takes the 23rd place on the FTSE 100 list of largest companies present at the London Stock Exchange. It is first on the global market of cleaning and hygienic products, which is palpable of a company producing and selling such popular and well-known products as Vanish, Harpic, Calgon, Air Wick, Finish and Weet. Its Hungarian subsidiary, Reckitt Benckiser Magyarország Kft. opened its factory at Tatabanya in 2008 with more than 20 production lines and three-shift continuous production.

As early as half year before production was launched, the factory at Tatabanya had been given the exact list of goods to be produced with all their datelines, and afterwards, a weekly breakdown of effective orders. The task of the factory was to purchase, store and forward necessary base materials to the production lines in time. Production could only be launched with all necessary materials delivered and in-stock.

It was a serious problem that forklift drivers forwarding the base materials to the production lines could not be aware of weather all necessary materials were in stock. It occurred that the lack of some base material was only discovered at the preparation of materials to the production line, thus the planned production failed whereas even machine conversions had been effected in vain. Finding base materials in the store was another permanent problem burdening truck workers and other staff. Work-time use was ineffective with too much idle time and the overall operation of the factory was much less economic and effective as it could have been. An unreasonably high stock level was kept to make sure that continuous production is possible.

10-15 lorries waiting for product loading at the premises were usual in this period. Such situations were triggered by storekeepers being unaware of the actual place of the goods in the store that were waiting for transfer, which necessitated the time consuming task of their physical search. Mistakes and arising customer complaints were common and delayed transports within the factory generated further troubles. Benckiser was seeking for a solution that would be able to address these problems.
 

Decision-makers of the company intended to address this issue with the purchase of such a new, modern production and warehouse management system (WMS) that is able to cooperate with the JD Edwards business management system in operation. The following objectives were outlined:

•  Significant increase in the effectiveness of storekeepers and truck workers
•  Shortened and rationalized internal transports
• Reduction of the number of production faults
• Increase in the effectiveness and productivity of the factory
• Introduction of a load-in / load-out system that can be accurately documented
• Fully transparent store procedures and development of such an information system that provides unanimous and immediate access to all kinds of data and information for workers and managers that are necessary for their work
• Decrease in the amount of printed documents
• Improvement of customer satisfaction and elimination of previous mistakes
   

Reckitt Benckiser was seeking for a system capable of handling product reception and quality control, besides providing transparency and manageability for all in-factory material transfer and reconfiguration tasks. This new solution was to supervise and control the whole of the production procedure including base material supply and re-supply for production lines. It was also important that the system should control the stock record system of finished goods, good preparation, transport and inventories. This system could only be operated as an extension of the JD Edwards system supervising administrative procedures of the company, since this was the source and target of detailed data on production, planning and stocks. Furthermore, all these data must have made accessible to the management and those participating in the production.

During selection of the solution, decision-makers of the company inspected possibilities in the Hungarian market and found the offer of BCS Hungary was the most suitable. When making the decision, it was an important factor that BCS had been able to present a real working, previously introduced and well manageable system. As a result all details of the operation of the system could have been studied, especially in possession of all those practical experiences that BCS had shared with Reckitt Benckiser during the negotiations.

Another part of the solution was to purchase mobile computers that match the new WMS system well and facilitate effective work on the long term via their reliability, robust workout and low total cost of ownership. Based on negative previous experience, large battery capacities facilitating use of the equipment as long as a whole shift was an important point. Finally, Motorola MC3000 és MC9000 models were chosen, also provided by BCS Hungary, as these fulfilled all conditions set.
 

Setup of the new WMS system and training of the workers demanded seven months. At the end of the procedure store and production work procedures became more rational, simpler and significantly more transparent. The stores and the production lines gained an overall atmosphere of order. Everything found their place, thus idle times shortened considerably. Since workers now had precise information on the accessible amounts of base materials and their locations, stocks could be reduced, which entailed a drop in expenses. Earlier idle times generated by base material shortages ceased to occur, since the machinery was only converted when all necessary base materials were in stock for the whole amount to be produced. Unnecessary work procedures and base material preparations ceased to exist.

Thanks to this, management gained precise information of production data, perspective figures and base material / finished goods inventories. The number of customer complaints concerning waiting in the finished goods store and faulty performance has dropped significantly. As a result of all these, measurable savings raised, besides an increase in the productivity of the factory, and a considerable decrease in customer complaints. Due to preliminary calculations the return period of the system will be less than one year.