The Chesterfield, UK based business has introduced the Microlistics WMS ‘Express’ variant to power the 170,000 square foot, purpose-built facility, completing one phase of a £15 million-pound drive to improve capacity, productivity and efficiency across its operations.
The new WMS, forms the nerve centre and management control tower for the operation, driving optimisation of the DC, its resources, workflows, inventory management and fulfilment capabilities, including system-directed task management.
Cut-over to the new WMS went smoothly with on-site support from the Microlistics team able to conclude after just seven days on-site following go-live.
Under the new WMS, the DC is currently dispatching up to 14,000 carton picks per day with approximately 30,000 pallet space locations and pick-faces fully managed by the WMS. These volumes will increase, as Utopia continues to ramp up operations through a period of rapid global growth.
Utopia Founder and CEO, Mark Rammell, said implementation timeframes and solution functionality were crucial determinants in their decision to implement Microlistics WMS.
“We needed a proven Tier 1 WMS, but also had a requirement to deploy rapidly as part of a scale-up to service the growing demand from our wholesale customers and distributors.”
“It was paramount that we choose a WMS capable of scaling with us as we ramp up our current operations and with the advanced capabilities we will need to introduce new technologies in future as we further refine our warehousing operations.”
Microlistics Managing Director, Mark Dawson, said top priorities for the Utopia team were deployment speed, solution flexibility and the implementation of warehousing best practices at every opportunity.
“A top priority for Mark and the Utopia executive team was speed, flexibility and best practice – they needed a solution that integrated directly with their existing Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP and, importantly, could scale in line with the company’s growth.”
“The bespoke system they had previously developed had become a risk to the business, and they wanted to move to a widely trusted product allowing them to deliver world-class functionality in the shortest timeframe possible, without limiting future business plans.”
“We are already working with Utopia on a secondary transformation phase, which will include the deployment of our market-leading business intelligence analytics, and labour management, modules. These are core parts of our software product, with no need to access and license external applications.”
