Filling A Tall Order
As the most recognized Australian brand around the globe, Foster's Brewing International brews and distributes more than 100 million cases of its most famous beer, Foster's Lager, to more than 150 countries worldwide. The company's success in expanding its portfolio and global reach can only be sustained by a scalable production and distribution network. In 2003, the company decided its current systems and processes did not have the needed flexibility or capacity to meet increasing demand for diverse product lines.
After a thorough assessment, Foster's embarked on $170 million project to significantly improve supply chain capabilities, reduce operational costs and gain economies of scale. It closed its Sydney brewing operation and two existing warehouses to centralize warehousing operations in one facility located in Yatala, Australia, near Brisbane.
In order to drive production and supply to the majority of the New South Wales Queensland and Northern territory market, the Yatala facility needed a warehouse solution with critical functional depth, flexibility to evolve with consumer tastes and real-time business intelligence to optimize service across its supply chain network.
Foster's turned to RedPrairie Corporation to deploy a single installation of Dlx Warehouse to centralize warehousing operations, which was delivered on time and on budget. Dlx Warehouse provides a seamless transition from production to the warehouse to end-point distribution. The new 20,000-square-meter facility can handle a weekly production capacity of more than a million cases of packaged beer (13,800 pallets) and 92,500 draught beer kegs (10,300 pallets) as well as external receipts of more than 2,000 pallets of packaged beverages, including wine, spirits and non-alcoholic beverages, and 500 pallets of kegs. When the system receives the goods from production, they are optimally directed to inventory locations, to other tasks such as labeling or to be loaded from the mass accumulation table onto to outbound vehicles.
To streamline intra-warehouse execution, Dlx Warehouse enabled task interleaving with 27 forklifts, including nine twins. This functionality configured with user involvement enabled operators to pick multiple pallets simultaneously for a single load, dramatically reducing travel time.
To further enhance productivity levels, Foster's invested in radio frequency equipment. Dlx Warehouse and a solution from Intermec run on a Windows XP touch screen for the forklift drivers, providing Foster's with the ability to interchangeably communicate with supply chain solutions it may implement in the future.
With the right resources and great buy-in from the start, Foster's now has the flexibility it needs to maintain its leadership role in the industry. Overall, Foster's is seeing results in four key areas: Automation, visibility, utilization and flexibility, which makes Yatala the success model to follow for future site developments at Foster's.
"By streamlining inbound and outbound warehouse processes with RedPrairie, we are able to achieve consistently higher performance levels across the supply chain that drive additional savings," says Robbie Attard, business systems and service manager, Foster's.
Foster's has since replaced other warehouse management systems, gone live with RedPrairie at its specialized 43,000-square-meter export wine distribution center and is now undertaking a global rollout of RedPrairie. CG