Melon Fashion Group retail chain has automated warehouse process management with the help of WMS-system from Odyssey consulting company. Melon Fashion Group is a Russian manufacturer and retailer of women's, children's and men's clothing. The company owns the brands ZARINA, BEFREE and LOVE REPUBLIC. The Melon Fashion Group retail chain has 550 stores in 7 countries: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia and Poland. The total area of the stores exceeds 126 thousand square meters. Melon Fashion Group has almost 4 000 employees. At the moment the Odyssey WMS implementation has covered the processes of the company's trading equipment warehouse with more than 2500 SKU, five-tier storage and area of 2500 square meters.
The Melon Fashion retail equipment warehouse is divided into three zones: LOVE REPUBLIC, BEFREE and ZARINA. The first launch of the system was realized on the trading equipment of the LOVE REPUBLIC brand. The project was realized as planned and in the shortest time possible - in 2.5 months. Further the system introduction on two other brands is planned. Melon Fashion Group management has a lot of ideas for the development of logistic operations used in the company.
The customer was looking for a platform that could support not only current but also future business processes of the warehouse. Maintenance and development of the old system required a lot of effort from the company's employees, so the Melon Fashion Group management decided to switch to a new WMS solution. The main purpose of the future WMS implementation was the customer's urgent need to move from the "paper" warehouse management, where all processes were carried out manually, to the modern methods of work, which completely exclude the manual methods of transmission and entering information into the database.
The following objectives were also important factors of switching to the new WMS: increasing the speed of order processing, improving the quality of assembly and control of the warehouse in online mode. The main criterion for choosing the Melon Fashion Group partner was successful experience in implementing warehouse automation projects with complex goods and creative approach. In addition, the company was looking for a partner able to offer a ready-made solution that would provide fast startup and high-quality results. Finally, Melon Fashion Group decided on Odyssey Consulting company and its Odyssey WMS.
Odyssey WMS is a solution for managing internal logistics and warehouse processes. The system allows you to maximize the use of space, to keep records of the order picking and increase staff performance with a simultaneous reduction of errors. Odyssey WMS is suitable for warehouses with different approaches to automation - from simple to the most modern operations management systems. At the top level, the project was divided into three main stages - diagnosis of warehouse processes, implementation of key functionality and integration with 1C, and further development of the solution to meet the future needs of the customer. In this case, due to the complexity of the processed goods, the diagnosis stage was particularly important to both the consultant and the customer - it gave an understanding of what processes were to be automated, what approaches to apply and what, ultimately, the solution should be implemented.
WMS-system by Odyssey supports various types of racking and shelf equipment and integrates with any types of weighing equipment. This is especially relevant for Melon Fashion Group, as the company's warehouse has a complex organization. A large number of oversized storage areas, work with complex elements, and its own specifics in measuring certain types of equipment required non-standard approaches to the organization of targeted storage and automation of the main processes. But Odyssey specialists were able to offer optimal solutions for all the issues that arose. Odyssey WMS made it possible to obtain and successfully maintain database of weight and dimension characteristics of the goods, as well as to process complex oversized items that do not have the specifications showing attachments and for which more than one cargo space is used..
In order to reduce the cost of system holding and to be more independent from the partner Melon Fashion Group had chosen the way of self-sufficient automation. The first acquaintance with the solution was held at the integration test after which the training was continued at the working version of the system. Odyssey consultants also conducted a training where the most complicated warehouse processes were considered. In the future, Melon Fashion Group is planning to develop the solution, in the course of which the processes of cross-docking, placement management and the application for goods acceptance by external counterparties will be redesigned.