Customer Overview
One of the largest private equity firms headquartered in the UK acquired portfolio companies in
the business of managing warehouses for elite people across the US and Europe. The private
equity firm aimed to introduce a pivotal warehouse management system to manage the warehouse
operations of all portfolio companies.
Project Overview
In the current system, each of the various portfolio companies utilizes its distinct warehouse
management system to oversee internal processes. The private equity firm aimed to consolidate
disparate systems and processes across its portfolio companies by implementing a unified
warehouse management system. They want to start by building a system that enables users to
efficiently search for warehouse items, submit service requests, and transparently track the
movement of goods.
Challenges
Building a centralized system with advanced features, migrating multiple Warehouse Management
Systems (WMS) into it, and ensuring uninterrupted operation.
- The primary challenge was to migrate all Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) modules from
multiple portfolio companies to a centralized system, while ensuring continuous operation of
centralized and individual portfolio systems throughout the transition.
-
Implementing and managing warehouse items is the main priority in the new WMS, with a focus
on
full text search and handling service requests for warehouse items.
-
Implementing a sophisticated role-based access management system for all types of users that
can
accommodate all future requests related to roles and permissions, considering the potential
of
drastic changes in role management.
-
Enabling real-time tracking and damage detection of items during both inward and outward
movements.
-
The new system relies on data sources from various WMS of portfolio companies, requiring
parallel operation until all modules transition to the centralized system.
-
Onboarding and training users from multiple portfolio companies onto the new centralized
system
successfully.
Solution
We developed a client portal module as a web and mobile application. It is a part of the
centralized Warehouse Management System (WMS).
- During the transition period until full integration, users had access to operate on both
the
centrally managed WMS and the WMS of their respective portfolio companies.
-
Since the new system relies on the data from existing portfolio companies, we have
implemented
an advanced data pipeline that consistently transfers data from all portfolio companies to
the
databases of the new system.
-
Approximately 80% of the system's functionality is dedicated to searching, categorizing and
taking actions on items. Our approach aims to simplify stakeholder training & onboarding by
providing a user experience similar to an online marketplace.
-
To enhance our search experience and emulate the features of a marketplace, including
full-text
search, smart search, image search and filtering, we implemented Elasticsearch as our search
engine offering sophisticated query capabilities.
-
Due to the ever-changing nature of stakeholder roles, particularly concerning item access,
we
have deployed Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to meet current and future requirements
seamlessly.
-
Efficiently managing the item movement is crucial, so we have integrated real-time tracking
for
users to monitor transit. Additionally, we've employed artificial intelligence to identify
and
flag damage promptly, during movement, alerting users of any issues thereby enhancing
transparency.
Benefits
- Consolidating multiple portfolio companies' systems into one centralized location reduced
the
effort required for searching and managing service requests.
-
Enhanced transparency in tracking and managing item movement across various geographical
locations led to heightened customer engagement.
-
Breaking silos in processes and data across the portfolio companies with our solution helped
the
client streamline operations and promote consistency in data management.
-
The client gained better oversight and control over the operations of portfolio companies
while
enhancing efficiency and improving collaboration and communication.
Industry
- Logistics
- Warehouse management
Technology and Integration
- Java, Elasticsearch, React, Flutter
- AWS Lambda, AWS RDS, AWS SQS, AWS Fargate, AWS Amazon Rekognition, AWS Lookout, AWS
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