Early 2016, logistics service provider LEF became a client of WICS. Bart Koster runs the company together with his wife Claudia (pictured here on the right in conversation with WICS consultant Nicoline). Bart focuses on the commercial side, but also on operational management. Claudia is mainly involved in Finance, ICT and back-office. She talks about the wide range of activities and how the Warehouse Management System WICS Enterprise supports this in maintaining the client base.
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The key figures
- Surface area 3 locations: 11,000 m2
- Number of order lines per month: 15,000
- Number of impacts per month: 100
- Number of employees: 18
- Customer base: (among others) Scotch & Soda, Smart Install, FaberExposize, 2theloo, Newby Teas
The LEF warehouse in Amstelveen. Both halls are now largely used by LEF.
Origin of LEF
Bart Koster started the company in 2000 under the name Bart Logistics Services. For years, Bart rented himself out to all kinds of organizations for his logistics expertise, including in the fashion industry. After a number of successful years, he was increasingly asked by his network to also arrange storage, which is why LEF moved into its current building in Amstelveen in 2008.
It started in a small part of the current building, without the office yet: “Bart put up a desk with a patio heater, nice thick boots and that’s how he sat behind the laptop during the winter months to manage the business,” says Claudia. Then new customers slowly came in from the network. “At first that was on a few pallets. Then a rack was added and six months later I joined the company.”
“We had actually already purchased WICS for the reference visit.”
At that time, the battery brand Varta came to LEF via contacts at DHL. The parent company, Spectrum Brands, has a large number of brands. This varies from hair products to an animal feed brand. The application manager of the WICS WMS states: “That became – and still is – an important, growing customer and so, over time, more and more staff were added. The office was professionalized and the canteen was added.
We also received more demand from the clothing industry, initially mainly on a project basis. Later, more and more regular customers came who entrusted us with the storage and handling, so at a certain point we had to rent this entire hall. We now rent half of the entire location. We also have warehouses in Heteren and Mijdrecht.”
The warehouse always looks neat and tidy. After all, a customer must always be able to walk in.
LEF’s high level of service
As a logistics service provider, LEF naturally provides storage, warehousing and removal, but also offers many additional activities from repacking to labeling and assembling products. However, it is not only Value Added Logistics (VAL) activities that are decisive for customers: “Thinking along about how things can be done more efficiently and what we can also offer extra commercially is actually the biggest reason that customers choose us. In addition, we offer a full-service package.”
To illustrate, Claudia gives a recent example: “In 2018, we were approached by 2theloo to carry out a number of time-critical transports. 2theloo facilitates public toilets in shopping centres and stations, among other places. We continued to do the transports, but in the meantime we have also carried out their relocation of the head office in Amsterdam and we are in discussions to set up and manage their spare parts warehouse. Customers regularly ask us to think along with them in their process or with their other logistical or facility problems. We see the relationship with the customer as a partnership and that is what sets us apart. It also works well, together you achieve much better results and it is more efficient,” says Claudia.
Both B2B and B2C
LEF serves both Business to Business (B2B) and the Business to Consumer (B2C) sector, although the latter target group is less present. The B2C customers often consist of B2B customers with a webshop next to it. The goal is to do more with this: “But with e-commerce it becomes interesting with scale. So you really need a big player to make it efficient and that way you can offer low prices. With the B2B side we are much more in the service that LEF offers with all the extra work. For example, we have our own means of transport with which we provide transport ourselves, so if it has to be somewhere quickly at a location, we can do it ourselves. We also work with a number of regular transport companies.”
From clothing to electricity meters
The customer portfolio is extremely diverse, as Claudia indicates: “That diversity makes it varied for our employees and challenging to always make good plans to satisfy everyone. Scotch & Soda has also been a major customer of ours since autumn 2018 and we are now developing a lot with that. We store part of the stock and for B2B we do the picking at box level on request. We are currently in discussions to expand that further.”
Smart Install installs smart gas and electricity meters for Liander in households. Since the spring of 2017, 150 fitters have been collecting their installation material in the form of an order from LEF in Amstelveen and Heteren several times a week. For contractor Smart Install, it was the first time that the order process was outsourced to a logistics partner. They wanted to better control the stocks. “Smart Install came to us via WICS and we helped them with this issue because WICS offers all the desired functionalities and we have the logistics knowledge,” says Claudia.
Scotch & Soda is still relatively small in terms of storage and handling, but will continue to grow in the future.
Looking for a WMS
In 2014, LEF increasingly started looking for a WMS, because big steps had to be made in terms of automation. Everything was done ‘by hand with Excel’ and more and more requests came in.
“We noticed that more and more customers were working with a system that you also wanted to link. When you get more and more customers, inventory management in Excel is simply not possible. It is error-prone and at some point customers also expect more professionalism. Inventory management was the biggest spearhead, in addition to managing the warehouse and ensuring that everything is stored more efficiently.” Maintaining the pick and bulk locations was done manually. Replenishing bulk to pick was done using an Excel list. “That worked too, but it all had to be done manually and it took a lot of work. Now it can be done via WICS.”
“WICS Enterprise actually has everything”
LEF therefore started to orient themselves and went to the ICT & Logistics fair. They met the then director of WICS there and it clicked. “Then we looked further, but actually kept coming back to WICS. WICS Enterprise actually has everything. You have ADR, categories, it can be linked to many systems and you can also store sizes. Since we have a diverse customer base, that is very nice. Those are the reasons why we chose WICS. The choice is therefore mainly in the diversity that your WMS offers. That really sets you apart from the other packages.”
A pleasant reference visit followed at WICS customer Fuji Logistics with the General Manager at the time. “The company also had a variety of products, both small and large orders and could show it well in the warehouse. “We saw WICS for the first time then, that was funny. We had talked about it a lot, but never seen it. We had also already signed the contract then”, says Claudia.
“The training itself went very well. It is also very nice that you have the training at home and that you reserve half a day for it each time. WICS has a lot in it, but that also makes it complex to learn. You only really learn a lot when you start working with it.”
In addition to the pallet stock, LEF has also set up a small picking warehouse, often for B2C orders.
Objectives
Next year LEF will be 20 years old and the vision for the coming years is clear: “We now have 11,000 m2, our goal is to eventually offer 20,000 m2 of optimal logistics services, where it is a paradise for customers to be served and it is even better for employees to work.” LEF cannot grow much more in Amstelveen, the warehouse in Mijdrecht is full and Heteren is for a temporary project. “So we are looking for a new location next to Amstelveen, where we want to set up a European distribution center for a number of Chinese and American companies in the short term. These companies have approached us to do not only their logistics but also the front and back office. We want to grow, but that means that we also have to optimize our automation and personnel. To put our house on a firmer footing. We are busy with that now.”
Regarding the objectives with WICS, the logistics service provider wants to get the invoicing in order: “Of course, it is also an advantage of WICS that you can completely control your invoicing and that you can link it to your accounting program. If we then set up the VAL activities properly, we can also invoice this automatically. At the moment, this is still done manually.”
“I think we will definitely save a permanent employee in terms of costs.”
Efficiency boost
Finally, Claudia looks back on the results. “What have we achieved so far with WICS? You can specify exactly how you register the logistic flows such as storage and orders, which is also a reason for customers to come. For example, we do use WICS as a sales tool.” LEF also makes good use of the web portal for customers: “Because we have such diverse customers, they also work with so many different systems. Not all systems can be easily linked. In that case, the portal is very useful.” Claudia does find that some customers would like to see more of WICS: “Because they often do not have ERP themselves, customers want to know what they have sold to a specific customer.”
In any case, LEF notices a major efficiency gain with WICS: “I can’t express it in percentages, but the fact that you no longer do so many things manually is already a huge gain. While the error sensitivity is a lot lower.” And, Claudia continues: “When we started using WICS, I looked at our monthly costs. When we bought it, that was about one employee, so you want to save that. I think that is certainly the case.”