Europe's most modern tool logistics with SAP EWM/MFS + SAP TM
Over 200 million euros have been invested in the newly built LogisticCity - the largest investment in the over one hundred year history of Hoffmann SE. The high-performance tool logistics facility with adjoining TechnologyCenter is the Hoffmann Group's global central warehouse. It is located on a 21.5-hectare site and has a record-breaking floor space of around 100,000 square meters - the equivalent of around 13 soccer pitches. At the heart of the central logistics hub is a shuttle warehouse with around 560,000 storage spaces. Up to 40,000 shipments can be dispatched daily with maximum delivery quality. The entire intralogistics system is controlled using SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM), including the SAP Material Flow System (SAP MFS) and SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) sub-modules. The interaction of all functional areas, from goods receipt to dispatch, has resulted in a truly high-performance logistics system.
Founded in Munich in 1919 by Josef Hoffmann, the company was consistently focused on specialist advice and the sale of quality tools by Franz Hoffmann from the 1950s onwards. The introduction of the company's own product lines under the GARANT brand also goes back to him. Today, the Hoffmann Group concentrates on central purchasing and logistics and offers everything you need within 10 meters of the industrial workplace: Quality tools, workshop supplies and personal protective equipment are supplied from LogisticCity. Factory equipment and goods issuing systems come from Odelzhausen. Digital products and solutions, loading systems for machine tools and various services are also available.
LogisticCity: Hoffmann Group warehouse space tripled
The sustained growth in articles and turnover of Europe's leading B2B tool retailer has already required permanent adjustments to warehousing and logistics, always combined with the demand for maximum availability, the highest delivery accuracy and the shortest delivery times. However, the continued positive business development - increasingly also abroad - and the growing product range soon meant that the capacity limits of the logistics center built in 2009 were clearly stretched and consequently plans were made for the further expansion of logistics in the form of a large-scale "LogisticCity". Its implementation in the form of a new building started in 2018 on a greenfield site .
The new logistics center had to meet a wide range of objectives: The now extensive services had to be significantly expanded, capacities had to be tripled, maximum supply security for customers had to be guaranteed while order volumes continued to rise and the steadily increasing transport volume also had to be absorbed. Another key requirement was a high degree of automation in order to raise and maintain delivery quality to a top level while minimizing the physical strain on employees. A capacity reserve within the building and scalability of the installed intralogistics system, including the flexibly expandable transport network, were also important for the long-established company.
Experience and a willingness to innovate required at the same time
As Hoffmann has always pursued a clear SAP strategy, the use of SAP EWM including the sub-module for material flow control (SAP MFS) was a given. In a tough bidding competition, the SAP project house IGZ was also called upon to score points with far more than regular implementation expertise: "We had known IGZ for over 20 years and they had always proved to be a reliable partner in various warehouse projects. In view of the ultimate high-performance logistics to be mapped in SAP standard software, we nevertheless opted for a meticulous selection process," explains Alexander Eckert. "Several references from the field of high-performance logistics, where similarly demanding tasks were solved excellently, spoke in IGZ's favor." The requirements for the service provider were therefore extremely high. No wonder: after all, one of the first SAP EWM/MFS installations based on S/4HANA was to be implemented in LogisticCity - an absolute novelty, especially with this dimension in terms of performance requirements and process diversity.
IGZ began formulating the specifications at the end of 2018 and development soon began in parallel in order to meet the challenging schedule. The SAP implementation then ran at full speed around the laying of the LogisticCity foundation stone in July 2019. The extensive test phase began in 2020 with the help of the IGZ system emulation, a digital twin of the system with which functional, integrative and mass tests could be carried out without warehouse physics using SAP EWM/MFS. The project was successfully completed with the go-live of the entire system, including a gradual ramp-up. LogisticCity has now been in operation since 2021. At its heart is the highly dynamic, SAP EWM/MFS-controlled shuttle warehouse with a storage and retrieval capacity of up to 15,000 containers per hour. The dispatch and packing areas also play a central role. Customers and national companies are supplied worldwide by eight freight forwarders, six CEP service providers and two couriers specializing in special trips, who offer a total of 55 different transport and freight services - and the trend is rising. Global export shipments are also planned cost and environmentally efficiently in SAP TM. This includes both physical transportation services with customer-specific loading and delivery options as well as "informal" services such as online shipment tracking.
System control with a highly complex requirement profile
While the three-aisle high-bay warehouse stores 30,000 pallets with double-deep storage for replenishment, the 66-level high shuttle warehouse impresses with around 520,000 storage locations, also with double-deep storage, in order to be able to handle up to 15,000 container retrievals per hour at peak times. Around 250 pallets and 2000 parcels are received daily in the incoming goods area. The system performance, which is designed for high throughput rates, continues right through to dispatch. At the same time, around 900 shipping pallets and up to 40,000 parcels can leave the logistics center. Conveyor lines with a total length of 14 kilometers connect all areas of the facility.
"Mapping a permanently high throughput rate was no mean feat on the IT side," explains IGZ Division Manager Stefan Ostwald. "The performance of the shuttle warehouse in particular made it necessary to trim the intelligence in the system control over several months. For example, our best practice 'Smart Shuttle Control' was used to ensure optimum utilization of all shuttle vehicles." The quantity structure gives an idea of the challenges: 442 vehicles including lifters and 68 PLC controllers are directly controlled via 500 reporting points. Specific functions were built into the IGZ system emulation to ensure smooth routing. As a result, around 200,000 entries with stored source and destination information are now available in the emulation. "The system's ability to reliably decide which route to take and to set the appropriate vehicle in motion is definitely a case for artificial intelligence," adds Stefan Ostwald.
Consistently harmonized end-to-end process
"Another special feature of LogisticCity was that it was one of the first SAP EWM projects to be implemented on the basis of the new ERP generation S/4HANA," emphasizes Stefan Ostwald. "Hoffmann was already using SAP EWM in the existing logistics center. However, the prospect of being able to map and manage the entire logistics world, including transport management, with consistently standardized master and transaction data in just one system, completely convinced the customer." IGZ also implemented a performance-optimized SAP EWM/TM integration in order to create a balance between the performance of warehouse and transport logistics.
At infrastructure level, more than 300 workstations are mapped in SAP EWM: These include 60 in goods receiving, 40 packing stations each for small and large-volume goods and 32 picking workstations. These are each designed for a performance of up to 350 picks per hour. Two picking robots for single-item picking, which can be added as required and are integrated into SAP EWM, supplement the picking power. High delivery accuracy is ensured by a fully automatic weight check. This is integrated into the conveyor technology and also includes automatic label applicators to reduce non-value-adding activities to a minimum. The last station before the consignment is handed over to the carriers and transport service providers is a Natrix sorter, which assigns the load units to the respective outgoing goods gate. Cut-off times are maintained in SAP EWM and orders received by 6 p.m. leave LogisticCity on the same day.
Convenient mobile monitoring with SAP Fiori
The IGZ Best Practice "Smart Logistics Cockpit" (SLC) for SAP EWM allows the control center to keep a constant eye on the system, KPIs and the entire material flow. At the same time, critical operating states of the system are displayed via an alert monitor. And instead of stationary operating panels, mobile devices are used so that KPIs can be called up anytime and anywhere. The user interface is based on UI5 technology and the design is similar to apps that are part of everyday life for users and enable intuitive, user-friendly handling.
Pioneering spirit repeatedly proven
The two-storey, 50,000 m² high-performance facility currently supplies more than 135,000 customers worldwide with quality tools, personal protective equipment and workshop supplies. For Alexander Eckert, the successfully implemented mega project is "a decisive step towards digitally networked logistics that makes optimum use of today's technical possibilities." Thanks to the high degree of automation, delivery accuracy is already over 99.9% and Hoffmann is getting close to its forecast target of shipping more than 40,000 parcels a day from Nuremberg by 2030. Smart track-and-trace functions in SAP TM allow Hoffmann and, if required, B2B customers to track deliveries seamlessly via the logistics service providers' information systems. In addition, intelligent pre-consolidation via SAP TM saves freight costs and reduces personnel deployment. Hoffmann is thus also meeting the global demand for greater sustainability at this point. This is because the automated route planning in SAP TM enables optimal utilization of the delivery vehicles, reduces partial loads to an absolute minimum and avoids empty runs. This significantly reduces CO2 emissions throughout the entire transport network.
During the implementation of SAP EWM/MFS and SAP TM as well as the integration into SAP S/4HANA, the IGZ project team - as Alexander Eckert puts it - "did a very good job throughout the entire project." This has set the course for the continuation of this successful partnership. Plans include the increased use of robotics, for example in the area of de-palletizing and picking, the rollout of SAP EWM/TM to other locations and further expansion of the logistics structures. Hoffmann has made provisions and even has enough space to duplicate LogisticCity on the current site.
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