About Dematic
Dematic is the second-largest global supplier of material handling solutions. They supply warehouses, conveyor systems and other products ranging from complex scanning systems to small business solutions. A key differentiator of Dematic’s ongoing success is their commitment to innovation.
In 2016, Dematic was working to develop a 3D configuration environment to optimize the quoting, designing and selling process for their complex products. To efficiently complete this ongoing project, Dematic needed to find an experienced partner to help continue developing and implementing CET Designer extensions that would drive immediate value for their material handling systems.
To learn more about material handling and how CET solutions generate new value for configurable products, read the full story below!
Simplified Selling Process for Material Handling
What is material handling? Many consider material handling to simply be the process of handling inventory, but it involves much more than that. It consists of the movement, protection, storage and control of materials and products from manufacturing and warehousing to distribution and disposal. It’s a complicated process, but in essential terms, it can be defined as moving materials.
The material handling process typically utilizes a mix of manual, semi-automated and automated systems that assist the movement of materials within a warehouse to support logistics and the supply chain. And in manufacturing, successful material flow is crucial for an organization’s efficiency and profitability.
Not only does material handling directly impact the productivity in warehouses and distribution centers, but it can also mean the difference between a successful warehouse and one that fails. Warehouse layout significantly influences an organization’s material handling system efficiency and the functionality of the warehouse. Typically, warehouses are never built the same way, and designing material handling systems involves using several tools to configure solutions that ensure user satisfaction as well as safe and efficient warehouse layouts.
As a world-leading supplier of automated technology, Dematic saw the need to improve the design, selling and quoting process of warehouse solutions in the material handling industry. They understood that engineering material handling solutions is a highly complex task that requires a forward-thinking business strategy, so they embarked on a journey to develop a custom product configurator to enhance the selling process of their configurable products.
To distinguish themselves from competitors, Dematic originally implemented a proprietary design software tool that would allow organizations to visually configure their unique warehouse spaces. As time progressed, Dematic realized that software tool needed an overhaul and set out to find a new solution with the intended goal of simplifying the selling and ordering process of complex products. During the evaluation of potential technology platforms, the organization decided to use CET Designer — a comprehensive space planning software that handles the full range of specification and design work.
To go beyond just offering an upgraded tool, Dematic needed to find partners who could help design, develop and implement CET extensions that would drive immediate value for the organization, so they turned to OST. In 2016, we joined the ecosystem of Dematic partners by supplying developers that ended up helping to build one of the very first material handling CET extensions.
CET Solutions Drive Efficiency and Growth
In addition to technical and engineering complexity, specifying, purchasing and installing material handling solutions also involves coordinating and delighting a diverse range of stakeholders across an ecosystem of businesses and partners. To address the needs of all these stakeholders, Dematic focused on developing a space planning tool that would:
- Automate common tasks.
- Reduce design timelines.
- Accelerate delivery.
- Eliminate configuration errors.
- Integrate with existing quoting and ordering systems.
By using a CET material handling solution, Dematic’s manufacturers, distributors, sales teams, project managers and engineers would be able to use a single software tool to design, build, implement and sustain material handling systems.
In turn, this would revolutionized the sales process and customer support experience for Dematic’s customers.
To realize all these benefits and expedite the project, OST’s developers helped build Dematic’s complex products in a 3D configuration environment. Using an agile framework, our team developed, tested, and released products in CET, such as conveyors, AGV systems and storage racking products. (We also integrated drawing outputs to other vital parts of Dematic’s ERP system.) The CET extension software uses 3D (or 2D) product symbols to design spaces, and it has the ability to import building plans. Then, it generates realistic renderings, pricing, a bill of materials, rules, parts lists and much more.
Key Outcomes
Lower Costs, Faster Sales and Happy Customers
Using the software empowers customers to quickly review and solve engineering obstacles in the design process, which makes selling configurable products fast, easy and highly accurate. In today’s supply chain environment, this is essential for business growth and helps deliver productivity improvements in almost all critical warehouse functions and material flow.
Leveraging this technology has helped Dematic reduce the costs associated with specifying a solution while also shortening the sales and ordering cycle of complex products. The software enables Dematic and their clients to virtually design spaces 50% faster than their previous tool — driving new efficiencies for warehouse operations, material flow and business operations across the value chain.
Since that initial engagement in 2016, our team of experts has helped Dematic continue to develop and maintain innovative software systems that simplify and speed up the layout process, quoting, visualization and ordering of warehouse solutions.
OST: Your Partner for CET Extension Development and Product Configurators
OST helped turn Dematic’s CET extension ideas into reality with our experienced developers and cross-functional expertise. At every step of this project, our developers worked closely with stakeholders and other teams to optimize the design process of configurable spaces for the organization and their customers. With OST, our client has been able to avoid and overcome common challenges with CET extensions and drive new value faster.
Our work with this client is ongoing. As a strategic partner, we will continue to help Dematic achieve their business goals using our design thinking, proactive processes, deep expertise and dedication to their success.
And our Configuration Services Team can help your organization do the same.
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Clients like Dematic come to OST because we have highly capable teams with unique expertise in strategy, design, software development and technical services that help companies deeply understand consumer needs, align stakeholders across departments and leverage technology to gain a competitive advantage. If you want help solving the complex challenges your business is facing, we’d love to start a conversation. Reach out today!
