Matahari Evolves its DC Network with Manhattan Associates’ WMoS Technology

Matahari Putra Puma Tbk (MPPA) retail group is one of the largest retailers in Indonesia, focused primarily on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) such as grocery, electronics, cosmetics, clothes, and accessories.

Since it was established in 2004, the company has grown to include brands like Hyper Market, Foodmart and Foodmart Express, HyFresh, and Primo convenient stores. This expansion has seen MPPA rapidly grow market share in Indonesia, becoming the FMCG market leader in the country.

With a store network numbering into the hundreds across Indonesia, and carrying 13,000 different SKUs, MPPA needed to optimise its logistics infrastructure and network. This led to the company to develop five strategic distribution centres (DC) that would serve its retail network and meet direct customer demand.

Unlocking the Potential of its Fulfillment Centres

To ensure that its DCs worked in concert to serve stores accurately and quickly, MPPA required a warehouse management system (WMS) that gave visibility across its entire inventory and helped manage supply chain fulfillment operations from the warehouse to the store shelf.

After conducting a thorough audit of all available options, MPPA chose Manhattan Associates to unlock the potential of its fulfilment centres. Manhattan WMS was chosen to advance MPPA’s operations beyond basic picking, packing, and shipping to evolve and enhance the hyper-flow of goods and information through its DC and store network.

Manhattan’s Warehouse Management for Open Systems (WMoS), was also chosen for its ability to be integrated with MPPA’s main and back-office financial systems and other legacy applications, whilst also reducing human intervention and reliance on intuition as much as possible.

Modernising Key DC Processes

MPPA has evolved many key DC processes to ensure its supply chain operations are as accurate and effective as possible. One of the key operations that have been modernised in conjunction with WMoS includes the introduction of voice picking.

When DC workers use an RF gun as part of the picking process, they have to switch between handling the RF device and the goods that they need to pick. As a result, MPPA also investigated and adopted voice picking solutions to drive further efficiency for fulfillment operations.

By using voice picking technology, a picker’s hands are free, so they can focus on collecting the goods. All instructions are voice-based, and the system and picker can communicate with each other without any manual hand-based in-puts. MPPA has seen an increased picking efficiency of 15%-20% since adopting voice picking technology, which runs in conjunction with WMoS.

 A Cloud-First Future

 In 2020, MPPA made the decision to have the WMoS application hosted by Manhattan Associates in a datacentre located in Japan. Considering data confidentiality concerns, the decision to trust a vendor - Manhattan Associates - to host and manage the application, as well as the cost of decommissioning recently purchased hardware, was a significant decision. However, since making this move, MPPA have found the benefits greatly outweigh their initial concerns.

The company has realised greater application stability and uptime running at their three DCs across the Java Mainland and Surabaya. They no longer need to be concerned about daily server maintenance, back-ups, continuity, and sustainability – everything is now managed entirely by Manhattan Associates. This new deployment approach means MPPA only have to arrange and maintain a fast and dedicated internet connection.

WMoS helps MPPA determine the best location to increase efficiency, shorten fulfilment cycles, and maximise throughput. It intelligently optimises every shipment in real-time across all transportation options and allows MPPA to focus solely on how to deliver goods from DC to stores fast and accurately.

 MPPA’s commitment to innovation and improving key supply chain processes to meet store and customer demand has resulted in a modern DC network, supported by advanced technology that will scale and evolve in line with its business needs – now and into the future.

For more information: https://www.manh.com/en-sg