Headquartered in Pietermaritzburg, Andreas Stihl is the sole distributor for Stihl and Viking products in South Africa. Stihl delivers quality power tools to the marketplace to 'make life easier for working people' in over 160 countries worldwide. VIKING, now incorporated into Stihl, is a leader in the garden tools sector.

Stihl employs more than 7500 people worldwide and a turnover (in the last reporting year) of $688,8m. In South Africa, Stihl has 25 employees with stock holding of approximately US$5m (R35m).

Stihl, while a small company in South Africa, faces a competitive and a demanding market. To ensure its sales team has the best support structures in place, 10 years ago Stihl invested in an IBM iSeries to run its ERP system covering all aspects of the accounting procedures. It selected the Info-Logic/400 solution from Info-Logic because it suited its multistructured environment and offered tight integration into their business. Targeted at the SMB market, Info-Logic/400 is a modular package delivering practical functionality. The ERP system runs the whole business from ordering stock from Germany via EDI through to invoicing local customers and paying suppliers - all fully integrated into the general ledger.

In 2004, Stihl found its inability to print bar coded pallet tickets on landscaped A4 size labels for incoming stock to be a significant business problem. The time spent manually processing these pallets was becoming prohibitive and detracting from not only customer service but also its overall market edge and image.

Stihl wanted the technology to allow it to e-mail business documents such as backorder listings and statements to customers and generally move away from a paper environment to a more efficient system. The company was clear about what it wanted and discerning about the need for solution fit. The initial and most pressing need was to meet the demands of a modern bulk warehousing system that could categorise the warehouse into different locations and, based on product type and the pallet type that it is received on, then have the ERP application tell the users where the pallet resides in the warehouse.

The primary need was for printed pallet tickets with bar codes that, when scanned, could tell the user when it was received, where it is in the warehouse and where other pallets are. Normal laser printers could not meet this requirement.

Info-Logic director Gary Hagemann recalls that one of the key criteria set out by Stihl was the need for simplicity and ease of use. "With no formal IT department, it was important that the successful solution and vendor offered a seamless solution and almost no support requirements. As with many South African companies, Stihl was also very focused on the importance of buying a solution that matched the local business environment. This is something that many of our clients demand and is the backbone of all our offerings."



PaperLess solution

Stihl bought the WilComm solution with:

* Print module: to enable the printed bar code labels to be generated.

* Mail module: to enable documents to be distributed appropriately - internally and externally. Once documents are merged, WilComm Mail can be used to send these documents via e-mail.

With the assistance of the technical team at Info-Logic, this installation went smoothly and the integration to the Info-Logic/400 back-office system seamless and hassle-free.

The solution was implemented in early 2005. In addition to printing the bar codes, it is also used to print meaningful reports for the iSeries in a more suitable format.

"WilComm has been a godsend - all those impediments to printing bar coded labels have gone. What was a cumbersome, time-consuming process fraught with opportunities for human error is now an automated, transparent one that the team does not see. Staff are now freed up to do more customer-centric work and leave the mundane tasks to WilComm."

Now, when a shipment or stock item comes into the warehouse, the locations are generated automatically and the labels, printed via WilComm onto the laser printer, are attached and the pallet is stored. This has made it easier to find stock in the warehouse as well: either by reading the label or using the bulk warehousing system.

For more information contact Gary Hagemann, Info-Logic, 011 465 6599, www.info-logic.co.za