COFAS | 4.0 Industry
The company has managed to optimize the integration between its ERP and its warehouse management system and guarantee greater operational efficiency in its activities
The Asturian Pharmaceutical Cooperative (COFAS) is one of the most important pharmaceutical cooperatives in
Spain, dedicated to the distribution of medicines, parapharmacy and services to pharmacy offices. It has more than 650 members distributed in Asturias, Cantabria, León and Lugo.
In recent years COFAS has opted for the digitalization of all processes. The culmination of this digital transformation process has been the creation of an intelligent 4.0 warehouse , integrating robotics with its SAP ERP.
The project has been implemented in four phases, with the complexity of having two warehouses coexist in SAP since, in addition to the entire implementation with the WM module , to manage the integration they had to implement a system based on queues and traffic lights due to the volume of iDoc type messages that SAP exchanged with the robotic warehouse.
- The company had a SAP ERP system, but needed to synchronize and coordinate the processes with another external warehouse management system since they presented significant differences in the way they operated.
- As an objective, they proposed to considerably improve productivity (response time to the pharmacy), the quality of order preparation (tend to 0 errors) and make a technological and automation leap.
- Use of blockchain technology for batch traceability, supply chain tracking and inventory management.
- Integration with a WCS warehouse management system.
- Greater operational efficiency and increase in productivity.
- Real-time data collection, which has allowed an improvement in the quality of products and services.
- Automation of processes aimed at operational efficiency in production and costs.
- Decrease in the preparation of orders and departure to the route.
SAP is an integral part of COFAS' business strategy thanks to its ability to adapt to its
changing needs and scale as needed, in addition to offering them a wide range of functionality and modules available to optimize and expand their business processes.
"The implementation has been largely carried out with
the company's internal resources, but we have
counted on the crucial support of SEIDOR during all
the project phases to optimize our solution
within SAP ERP thanks to its deep
knowledge, both of the system and our
business. We are extremely satisfied with your
work, since the technological challenge was considerable and
The success achieved has been significant, demonstrating
effective collaboration and tangible results."
SIlvia Ordóñez, IT Director of COFAS