How G3M Fulfillment Shaped with the WICS WMS
G3M, which stands for Graphic & MultiMedia Management, started in 2010 with the three current owners: Dick van Eerden, Rob Franken and Martijn Stikkelman (pictured from left to right). The agency from Zoetermeer advises on the purchase of graphic-related products “with the aim of increasing quality and customer satisfaction”. At the beginning of 2018, G3M made 2 major choices due to rapid growth: It moved to the current, larger building in Zoetermeer and opted for the WICS WMS. Martijn (responsible for DTP & ICT), talks about the activities, growth and future of his company and the role of the WMS.
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The start
The 3 owners worked in 2010 at a printing company that went bankrupt that year. Because they already had the specialisms for this in-house, they decided to set up G3M together for the purchase and sale of printed matter. This varies from everything and anything, from business cards, folders and brochures to sign products, facade lettering and signage. “Actually everything in the graphic field and everything custom-made”, says Martijn.
G3M can handle certain requests at its own location in Zoetermeer, for example for customers who want their direct mailings taken care of. Other printing work for customers is outsourced. In this case, quotes are usually requested from 3 parties. Because the owners have a lot of experience, they now know which parties best meet a specific request from the customer. Martijn: “Then it is only about what the customer wants in terms of price-quality ratio.”
“Immediately during implementation, we knew with the consultant how we could best organize the process.”
The step to fulfillment
“We always had a small warehouse for storing our customers’ printed matter. Customers can make a call for it via our order system, for example, store formulas that can store material centrally at G3M. Or the customer simply doesn’t have the space for it. One day we were asked to start doing daily shipments and we got involved in fulfillment logistics. It involved 20, 30, 40 large orders per day and that can no longer be processed manually. These can be 200 to 300 order lines with many different products. This meant that the storage capacity had to be increased and we wanted to purchase a WMS.”
However, G3M does not want to become a ‘typical box pusher’. The distinguishing feature in both the printing section and the fulfilment is to offer something extra than the ‘normal’. “So not the box pusher with as many fulfilment customers as possible. We offer added value in the personal service and the real thinking along with the customer.”
Hartstichting (Heart Foundation)
De vraag voor de dagelijkse verzendingen kwam van de Hartstichting. Alle folders, collectebussen, registratieformulieren voor vrijwilligers van de Hartstichting worden inmiddels uitgeleverd door G3M. Dit zijn bijvoorbeeld verzendingen richting ziekenhuizen met o.a. reanimatiematerialen en informatiebrochures over hart- en vaatziekten. De orders variëren van hele kleine orders tot zelfs pallets. Een aantal mailings van de Hartstichting, bijvoorbeeld bij de bevestigingsbrief voor het donateurschap, worden ook verzorgd door G3M.
The biggest rush for G3M is around the collection week of the Heart Foundation. “The first shipments for the collection week are sent in January, while the collection week only starts in April. The Heart Foundation naturally finds it important that this process is carried out (almost) flawlessly for the volunteers. That requires thorough preparation and the correct design of the process.
“Two points are very important for implementation”
So Martijn went looking for logistics software, and of course he looked at several parties. “There were two points that were very important to me. First of all, the implementation time was a challenge. A lot of parties dropped out because of that. In addition, there had to be possible links to other software packages.” WICS was approached via the internet, after which the conversation was continued again after a number of email exchanges at the trade fair in Utrecht. “At WICS I had the feeling that a lot was possible. In principle, everything can be set up the way we want it.” According to Martijn, this extensive package also has a disadvantage now and then: “The complexity is sometimes still a bit high in WICS. Where necessary, the consultant will step in.”
For G3M it was also very difficult to make a WMS selection, since it was a completely new process. “The logistical activities as we perform them now and the whole working with a WMS were new. We had to come up with a process and also find a system. I talked a lot about that with Fred van den Boogaard. Then the consultant also says: think about this, think about that.” The Business Consultant of WICS indicates: “We talked a few times in advance about the links and the flexibility versus uniform, responsible processes that are desired for G3M. That way we already had a good plan before the start. “As a result, we knew right away during the implementation how we could best set up the process”, Martijn confirms.
The implementation
Ultimately, the implementation was completed within a short period of time, with picking slips still being used. “We did not yet see the added value of scanning, which also has a price tag. If we still want to go there in the future, we can of course still pick this up.” One of the reasons for not implementing this yet is that G3M often picks order by order without the additional order picking techniques. “We sometimes combine some small orders, but often the orders are so large that we walk them order by order. Because the distances are not that large, this is still easy to do.”
“We now know exactly what is where and we have also made progress in terms of shipping.”
Results
G3M thinks that a number of things are better organised after the implementation of the WMS, although the beginning was sometimes difficult. For example, Martijn says: “Registering in the WMS took some getting used to. At first, we would sometimes walk into the warehouse to just grab a box. Now we oblige ourselves to first create an order. You are more aware of your stock. And that is necessary, because you have a lot more stock than before (before the move, ed.). And in addition to the standard orders, we also wanted to be able to see where our mailings went. We are now registering this as well. A different order process is used for that.”
We now know exactly what is where and we have also made a lot of progress in the area of shipments. Thanks to the link with Transsmart, we can also get shipping labels directly from the WMS for the various carriers we use. We used to do this manually in the carriers’ systems. With a small number of shipments, this was still easy to do, but now that we are growing rapidly, this saves a lot of extra administration.
Future
Next year, G3M will also be delivering collection materials for the Prinses Beatrix Spierfonds, a new client that came in via the Hartstichting, not by chance. G3M also wants to expand collaborations with clients and, in the future, grow within the charity sector in particular. G3M wants to achieve this by, among other things, realizing links with well-known software packages in the charity sector. “We are now familiar with the logistics, so with the right links we can connect the charities even faster in the future.”