Jacob's Bakery - Customer Story

The Jacob's Bakery at Aintree produce many well-known confectionary brands. In addition to its world famous cream crackers, the plant produces Twiglets and Club biscuits, puddings and a wide portfolio of own-label, travel industry, and catering products. Jacob's came to Barcode-IT when errors occurred in their existing WMS system and they needed something more reliable.

The WMS (Warehouse Management System) put into the Jacob's warehouse by Barcode-IT is now an integral part of everyday operation. Every stock movement is scanned and verified on-line, ensuring that all production, inventory and despatch records are accurate. The system maintains a complete audit trail of every single transaction for traceability purposes.

Chris Creswell, Senior Systems Manager says, “We had looked in previous years at Warehouse Management Systems but found them to be too expensive to justify. The WMS system was cost effective yet comprehensive and flexible enough to provide us with the features we needed. It is also simple to use for the warehouse operatives. We definitely made the right decision”

Application Overview

During 2002 Jacob's implemented the Dexterity WMS system along side SAP, which is being rolled out to many Danone Group companies.

“The Barcode-IT team guided and helped us through the specification of the warehouse procedures necessary to make the system a success” says Phil Hale of Jacob's IT team.

The Warehouse System is based on a wireless network and Falcon 345 portable scanning terminals in the warehouse and is fully integrated with SAP through an interface called IDOCS, which is the SAP communication method. Working with the Jacob’s SAP implementation team, each IDOC (transfer file) was carefully specified, developed and dry run tested before being integrated with the core system on-site. The SAP and Dexterity Warehouse System went live in February 2003.

How it started

In 2001 Jacobs attended a Barcode-IT Open Day at the Daresbury Park Hotel in Runcorn, Cheshire.

“We attended to see what solutions were available for carton labelling, we weren’t looking specifically for a Warehouse Management System”,

adds Phil.“The Open Day gave us an insight into all aspects of barcode solutions and technology including the Warehouse Management System.”

Jacob's already used a scanning operation in the warehouse to capture data on trailer loads going to the distribution centres but this was prone to error and they required a system that was much more reliable.