Geli GmbH

Our Customer

Geli GmbH (Geli) is a family-owned plastics processing company based in Alzenau (Bavaria) with a logistics center and external warehouse in Freigericht (Hesse). Today, the medium-sized company is one of the top producers of garden products with more than 5,000 items. Their own products are manufactured with the most modern injection molding and blow molding processes. Top seller is the plastic watering can which is produced in various designs in an annual quantity of almost four million pieces.

Sustainability, responsibility and community are firmly anchored in Geli‘s corporate philosophy. Among other things, Geli has been using energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies for years and consciously remains loyal to Germany as a business location.

Geli's Challenge

Apart from the superordinate booking processes in the ERP system, the entire warehouse operation at and between the locations was previously organized manually. This process has recently become more and more inefficient and non-transparent due to the ongoing growth of the company. Among other things, this became apparent during stock transfers between the sites. Due to posting delays, considerable differences arose in the annual inventory which had to be corrected afterwards at great expense. In addition, labeling solutions previously used for internal and external logistics proved to be too cost-intensive. All in all, there was a lack of end-to-end process reliability in intralogistics to save time and costs, as well as to minimize errors.

Our Solution

The centerpiece of the ICS solution is the Stradivari® Warehouse Management System (WMS) which is used as an integrative platform in all three Geli warehouses. In phase 1, ICS implemented the complete solution in their logistics center including the upstream WLAN concept. In phase 2, the WMS rollout took place at the headquarters and the external warehouse.

With Stradivari as well as peripherals integrated by ICS such as forklift terminals, tablets, hand scanners and label printing systems, all previously documented goods movements were digitized in the form of mobile dialogs. The stock information in and between the warehouses is set up directly and securely in day-to-day business. Furthermore, the WMS supports cargo handling via cross docking. Charge carriers (TEs) are uniquely identified for picking upon arrival at the warehouse by TE label and the assigned storage location is confirmed by scanning. At goods issue, TE labels can be generated dynamically even in several languages and electronic shipping notifications (DESADV) can be sent. The gate management in the WMS also ensures the active control of the gates with regard to availability and occupancy.

"ICS Group's integrative warehouse management solution interlinks our cross-location logistics, increases our responsiveness to customers and supports our sustainability claim in terms of resource-saving technology use."

_{Thomas Lippert, Director Geli GmbH}

The Result

Since go-live, the solution has ensured end-to-end process reliability in intralogistics by using mobile dialogs and paperless bookings via scanning. The WMS control center cockpit gives logistics managers complete process transparency at all times, including dynamic order prioritization. The large annual inventory effort is significantly reduced by the increased inventory transparency and the use of the WMS module „permanent inventory“.

_{Images used with permission of Geli. © Geli.}