Automated shipment tracking on the factory floor

Error-free outbound shipments for a manufacturer

For an industrial manufacturer that needed to ship diesel engines and parts worldwide, manual shipment preparation processes were causing lost pallets and hindering productivity. Olympe’s software platform let the company reduce logistics-related losses by building a track & trace application that ensures the right pallets on the right trucks in real time. And this was built in just 2.5 days.

The manufacturer shipped a high volume of parts and assemblies to other divisions worldwide.

But pallets of goods often arrived at the wrong destination. This was because the allocation of pallets to trucks was manually input into both the Warehouse Management System (WMS) and the ERP. The printing, placement and verification of labels on pallets was all manual. Every step introduced errors.

Re-sending goods to the correct destination increased operational costs.

When the other divisions didn’t receive their parts on time, it delayed their own manufacturing operations, impacting the company’s revenues and customer satisfaction.

Olympe worked with the client’s logistics team. Based on a 1 hour workshop and very light formal specs, Olympe developed a fully functional standalone prototype.

It consisted of a central desktop app for global visibility over the allocation of parts to pallets and pallets to trucks. Plus a mobile app for field employees to scan the QR codes of pallets along the logistics chain.

It could interface with 3 systems: the company’s ERP, Warehouse Management System and truck fleet management system.

The manufacturer got real-time visibility on all outbound shipments.

Apps for employees at all points of the logistics stream gave visibility on the progress of shipments.

The app automated all data entry and validated purchase orders actually prepared on the pallets with the ERP, eliminating human error.

It made sure all parts got to the right destination as fast as possible.