MDL Warehouse Keeper 2.5

Case Study - A major toy manufacturer in Hong Kong (Let's call it "Success Toy")

*We are sorry to include only summary of the whole system. Because the system we design for them is large and complicated. And even now, minor improvement is still on its way every once a while.

Hong Kong Staffs : 40 people

China factory workforce : 2,000 people

Nature of Business : Toy manufacturing

Product range : Toy cars

Warehousing Control Module

Different from our clients in the electronic manufacturing industry. Success Toy's warehousing system is based on naming system by the nature of its inventory and subdivided into more smaller regions in each warehouse. So, we designed a two layer warehouse architecture for them. Below is the diagram showing its structure.

Raw material warehouse ---|-- Plastic raw material region
                                                      |-- Metal raw material region
                                                      |-- Other raw material region

Outside Purchase warehouse ---|-- Paper (Color box) region
                                                                |-- Packaging material region
                                                                |-- Plastic component region
                                                                |-- Metal component region
                                                                |-- Electronic component region

Finished Product warehouse ---|-- Large client A region
                                                              |-- Large client B region
                                                              |-- Large client C region
                                                              |-- Other clients region

Dangerous Goods warehouse ---|-- Class 1 region
                                                                |-- Class 2 region
                                                                |-- Class 3 region

Daily Purchase warehouse --|-- Production supply region
                                                         |-- Tools region
                                                         |-- Machinery region
                                                         |-- Office supply region

Real-time vs. Centralized control

We ususally design warehousing system on real time basis. That is, the input and output of materials from each warehouse are recorded on real time basis as it happens. Each warehouse has its own warehouse keeper to record such transactions on site.

But Success Toy require something different, a Centralized controlled warehousing system. We are glad to design upon their requirement. In the last, they know better how to run their business than we do. Their approach is to collect the receipts from each warehouse every a few hours and have these receipts entered into the computer system at a central office. The time lap of a few hours seemed not to affact their operation.

A customized input interface

As almost everyone of our customers, Success Toy required a customized input interface designed specially for their business. In recording the warehousing transactions, more than 30,000 part numbers is divided into 10 groups, and subdivided into many different types. Their earlier system did not use interactive interface design (note: interactive interface - every key stroke is responded by the system), so users are having difficult time try to memorize the part naming system. Operator in earlier system have to be trained for almost 3-month in order to use it. For the new system by us, operator can be trained in a few days.

Security level

Modular control - Management can select who can access the warehousing control module. Unauthorized personnels can not even see the warehousing module menu on their terminal.

Two level of users
- Management can do everything including: Input transaction, Query transaction record and stock, Edit Stock, Authorization of new part number.
- Operators can only Input transaction and Query transaction record and stock.

Error control - Transaction record once entered into the system cannot be deleted. A chain effect can be uncontrollable if a record is entered now and later on deleted , so leave no record of what happen to the overall system. A reverse transaction must be entered in order to cancel the effect of a wrongly transaction.

Time, Part number and Operator

As to all our warehousing system, Success Toy can now use our system to track down on every detail of each warehousing transaction including: time, part number, from where, to where, authorized by, authorized document no., operator, inspector, etc.

BOM module

Success Toy have 8 product lines and each line consists of many models. And each model consists of many different colored sub-models. Some models are made according to a special client's requirement. For packaging, customers can choose from a list of standard packaging and also added special design to the packaging.

Mould management

Success Toy has a large mould inventory to manage. There are more than 200 moulds and increasing. Each mould may use a few type of plastic material to produce plastic parts. Each plastic material can use more than a dozen color-power to inject different colored parts. Each injected parts can be painted on partly or completely to change its appearance.

The system designed by us can do all these used-to-be manual write on paper thing in a computerized way. We are initially surprised that they managed to design a special paper form for such recording 10 years ago. But now, they can still use the very same form. It now appears in a computer screen with its old look but all new interactive features.

The actual BOM

The new BOM system is a customized design by us, as you may all be quite familiar with our approach. 4 layers in total. They are : Product line layer, Model layer, Assembly layer, Mould layer.

It is not easy to explain the exact working of this BOM design here. Actually, I don't think normal people without a toy manufacturing background can easily understand it. And it takes us many, many meetings with Success Toy's R&D team to work that out.

More modules

I think you may all went out of patient when reach this part of the case study. I know there are many more modules that we can talk about. But I really don't want to bore you with a essay that is 30 pages long. I hope that from this case you can get to know a little bit about how we design an ERP system "with our client". The important thing here is "with our client". As you have been told, we always say that "they know better how to run their business than we do".

--Written by: System Design Team - COM2000/MDL