TOPREGAL GmbH is a German family-owned company which operates throughout Europe and sells shelving systems for industrial storage as well as a wide range of warehouse and business equipment exclusively online. The company manages several locations in Germany and has further branches and warehouses in the UK, Portugal and Spain.
This spring TOPREGAL is opening a new production facility on a total of 20,000 square meters in Pasewalk, the Berlin-Szczecin industrial park. "This is where the production, storage, commissioning and shipping of technically complex products to Northern and Eastern Europe will take place in the future. The operation of this new warehouse also requires an upgrade of our existing ERP system," explains Philipp Schmitt, IT manager at TOPREGAL. The order is being carried out by braintec as a specialist for ERP solutions with the Odoo business software. TOPREGAL and braintec have been working together for more than three years. "First we rolled out all basic financial, sales and warehouse processes on the Odoo Enterprise platform. Since then we have been continuously optimizing and adapting the system to our needs," Philipp Schmitt underlines.
Automatisation for an efficient warehouse management
“Our requirement was that all processes in the four halls at the new location correlate systematically with each other and as a result, the work processes can be carried out more efficiently and more simply," Philipp Schmitt describes the initial situation. For example, braintec developers expanded the existing Odoo applications to include an intelligent sales management system for incoming goods. When new goods are delivered, the ERP software automatically suggests all available empty storage bins to the users as destinations for storage. "This automation saves us a lot of time in the warehouse management. However, if our employees want to store the goods manually, this option is also integrated in the application," Philipp Schmitt says.
Tailor-made and agile extension of the ERP system
Furthermore, TOPREGAL's Odoo ERP system was extended with some modules from the OCA Odoo Community Association. "Odoo is an open source software driven by a strong developer community. Meaning, if our customers have additional requirements, an application may already exist. In most cases it must then be adapted to the individual needs and implemented accordingly," the responsible braintec developer explains. "This is why we work with the Scrum method. On the basis of user stories, we capture the expectations of the users down to the smallest detail. In the following sprints, respectively the implementation of partial projects, these are then implemented quickly and on time. Together with TOPREGAL we have managed to successfully get various projects ready for upgrading the ERP system for the initial implementation of the first processes on site. However, our work is not yet finished. Until the official opening of the new warehouse it is important to further improve and perfect the various applications in the upcoming sprints. Because our goal is to always create the best user experience for our customers and end users."