TB Groupe

Observation

At TB Groupe's automated warehouse, the focus is on optimizing replenishment, retail order picking and tracking down unproductive time.

Solutions

As Philippe Boyadjis, Supply Chain Manager at TB Groupe, tells us: "In an extremely competitive cutlery sector, particularly in the face of Asian players with lower production costs, we made the choice in 2016 to automate our logistics for ever greater productivity and competitiveness. At a time of booming e-commerce, marketplaces and growing awareness of the importance of made-in-France production, we must continue to innovate in our warehouse to sharpen our logistics in line with the new speed requirements of mass retailers and consumers." Indeed, logistics, like innovation, represent the sinews of war for this leader in French cutlery, official supplier to the French Army and the TV show Top Chef, which produces in the Thiers basin and markets millions of knives a year, more than half of which are destined for supermarkets, hypermarkets and department stores.

With this in mind, in the summer of 2021, TB Groupe will deploy the new version of the BEXT solution in its automated warehouse equipped with Savoye's INTELIS PTS Good To Person system, to further automate replenishment and fine-tune retail order preparation. This new stage in the collaboration with Infflux, initiated in 2016, is part of TB Groupe's drive to track down unproductive time in its inventory management and speed up its retail order processing operations.

Results

Automation for greater productivity and competitiveness
As part of the overhaul of its logistics system in 2016, TB Groupe chose to automate order picking on its new 6,000 m2 platform using Division Savoye's INTELIS PTS Good-to-person system, and to optimize its flows using Infflux's BEXT solution. The aim of the project was to speed up order-picking operations and make them more reliable, within a reduced surface area of 600 m2, while at the same time reducing the need for operators to move around and the arduousness of their tasks.

This new organization, combining PTS and WMS, has enabled TB Groupe to make significant gains in time, efficiency and productivity in its order preparations, with 350 lines per hour per operator, a drastic reduction in errors and operator movements. Today, TB Groupe's logistics department can easily smooth its order preparation activity according to the high variability of orders and peaks in activity. On average, 50 pallets are dispatched, 60 to 65 orders processed and 1,000 parcels dispatched per day.

Outlook

New levers to sharpen logistics

As part of an evolutionary approach, the TB Group wants to track down unproductive time to reconcile logistics and customer promise at the best possible cost. With the new version of BEXT WMS, to be deployed in the summer of 2021, the TB Group wants to go even further in optimizing its flows, in particular in automating the replenishment of the Good to Person system, which includes three weeks of stock, by reassessing quantities and the restocking threshold.

"At the same time, we're looking at ways of optimizing retail preparations, which are growing fast, from every angle, from picking efficiency to packaging reduction. The new version of BEXT should enable us to optimally manage the key stages of retail order preparation, from picking to packing". Philippe Boyadjis, Supply Chain Manager, TB Groupe

Findings

Need to improve order-picking quality

Solutions

Installation of BEXT and INTELIS PTS

Results

Significant time, efficiency and productivity gains

Outlook

Automated replenishment of the Good to Person system