1. Kimberly-Clark.
Ahead of the curve.

3. “In the old DCs under the old paper-and-SAP
system, it’d take three guys an hour and a quarter
to turn one of those trucks around.
Now we can do it in three minutes.”
The large window behind Jeff Steadman’s Along with its sister facility in South
desk overlooks the docking bays of the Australia (adjacent to Kimberly-Clark’s
Kimberly-Clark national distribution centre Millicent mill), Erskine Park represents a
he manages. A 29-year veteran of the new level of best practice from a company
business, Jeff can see every one of the that’s been setting the industry pace for
60-odd B-Double trucks that come and 150 years.
go each day without leaving his chair.
Globally, Kimberly-Clark is a genuine
Some bring cartons of Huggies® and business giant, turning over more than
Snugglers® Nappies from the company’s $20 billion in 150 countries.
mill in nearby Ingleburn.
Kimberly-Clark Australia (KCA) makes In 2006, management recognised that ‘We weren’t looking at small details here
Others go the other way, distributing many of our most loved and demanded existing supply chain processes across the and there. We were look to streamline our
combinations of the 700- odd products supermarket brands. Kleenex® Tissues, company were outdated and hampering supply chain from start to finish.’
warehoused here to regional centres Cottonelle® and Wondersoft® toilet these efforts, and started looking for an Technology was at the heart of Dexion’s
across Australia and New Zealand. tissue, Viva® paper towel and of course, outside partner to help. proposed solution, specifically in the form
Huggies® nappies. of the company’s proprietary RDS
Jeff thinks these trucks illustrate nicely the Dexion was appointed to design a solution
gains made at this new facility at Erskine It’s also a committed follower of LEAN (Real-time Distribution System), which
and, after a competitive tender, to implement manages and controls warehouse and
Park, in Sydney’s outer west. ‘In the old business principles, which seek to it. ‘It wasn’t as simple as just building a new distribution centre operations from receipt
DCs under the old paper-and-SAP eliminate the expenditure of resources for warehouse,’ says KCA’s Mario Carniato, of goods to dispatch in real time.
system, it’d take three guys an hour and a any goal other than the creation of value
manager of e-supply chain. ‘It meant
quarter to turn one of those trucks around. for the end customer. ‘Though conducted with characteristic
redesign through the entire business, from
thoroughness, KCA’s existing linked chain
Now we can do it in three minutes. In a At Erskine Park and Millicent, that product barcodes to the size of our pallets of paper-and-SAP reporting systems was
business where transportation is more means looking for constant and ongoing to the introduction of regional distribution unable to provide up-to-the minute data
expensive than warehousing, that’s pretty improvement in order accuracy and hubs that could service our customers that the company needed,’ says Dexion’s
significant.’ cost control. more responsively.’ Michael Jee.
Dexion Case Study – Kimberly-Clark

4. “Dexion’s involvement was intimate, even to the
extent of being involved in the site selection.”
‘We’d recently implemented an ASRS installed, a group of Dexion and KCA
solution at Linfox Kellogg’s Botany and employees met to develop process and
took the KCA team along to have a look. system “blueprints”. Once the RDS system
They could really see the possibilities.’ had been customised to suit the blueprint,
the team then met in a boardroom at
‘Kimberly-Clark always had good
aggregated statistics to track key outcome Dexion’s corporate headquarters in Sydney’s
metrics (KPIs),’ says Mario Carniato. ‘But North Ryde to perform the first of 4 rounds
there wasn’t the ability to really drill down of testing.
into it and get to the causal factors – the To conduct this first “functional RDS” test
good stuff that you need to drive ongoing the team constructed a mini representation
improvement. That’s something we really of the warehouse in the boardroom by taping
wanted to achieve.’ out pathway and storage locations on the
Dexion’s RDS is designed to integrate with floor, and using empty product shippers,
the client’s other systems. In the case of to troubleshoot all proposed processes
KCA, it had to integrate with; SAP-ERP, within the newly customised system.
a custom-developed RORO (Roll On, Roll ‘We wanted to surface any problems here
Off) system, a Vehicle Scheduling system so we wouldn’t make them when the
(TMS), and a SSCC Pallet Label printing/ project went live,’ says Jeff Steadman.
application system retro-fitted into the ‘We invited the guys from the floor, team
company’s production lines. Specially built
leaders and the operational guys along
RORO trucks use the RORO conveying
so that we’d be sure to test for all the
system to operate a shuttle between
variations that they actually experience on
Erskine Park and Ingleburn.
the floor – not just what the design team
For three months, before a fork-truck had “thinks happens”. We wanted to get
been delivered or a single row of racking everyone’s perspective on the job, and
Dexion Case Study – Kimberly-Clark

5. “The system now gives us such a detailed level
of information that we’re really making micro-adjustments
all the time to get the most out of it.”
get the key people engaged as soon as same thing; reducing inventories and
we could.’ demanding better ‘trackability’ of individual
orders.
While the Millicent DC was built on spare
land within the existing manufacturing Critically, the application of the Dexion
facility, Erskine Park was a greenfields RDS required full implementation of SSCC
site. Dexion’s involvement was intimate, barcode pallet labels (Serial Shipping
even to the extent of being involved in the Container Code) across the KCA network.
site selection. The team developed two types of SSCC, process, driving the RDS and the other
affectionately called “skinny labels” and technology systems spoked out around it.
Erskine Park went live in late 2008. The
‘fat labels’ by Jeff and Mario. The SSCC is As you walk through Erskine Park, the
physical hub of the solution is an Automated
a special barcode label that allows a module thing that strikes you is the sense of order
Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS)
of goods (in this case a Pallet) to be and calm. There is the quiet grumble of
three- and four- bins deep. Seven twenty-
correctly and uniquely identified at every half-a-dozen fork trucks and the
five metre high cranes serve nine levels
stage of the supply chain from factory to occasional string of electronic beeps as
and 41,000 gross pallet positions. At full
the supermarket shelf and beyond. one of them reverses or rounds a corner.
speed, it can pick 190 pallets an hour.
The “fat label” SSCC conforms to the GS1 Deep in the background, if you know what
The scale of the project kept everyone on to listen for, you can hear the hum of the
Grocery Industry standard and is integral
their toes. Thirty-seven ‘mini-projects’ had nine storey ASRS cranes as they pick their
to our customers’ fast-flowing e-enabled
to be solved by the KCA/Dexion team, way through the 41,000 pallet positions.
barcode-enabled processes. It also forms
such as reducing the height of pallets by
part of the contents of the ASN (Advanced As Mario Carniato shows me through, he
70cm to meet stricter OH&S guidelines.
Shipping Notice), a little electronic message doesn’t once have to raise his voice to be
While KCA were working to extract more that arrives at each receiving DC before heard. The main source of noise comes
efficiency from their processes, their the truck, preparing the receiving warehouse from a radio playing classic rock in one of
customers, national retailers like Coles and for docking and putaway. Today, the SSCC the loading bays. It certainly doesn’t feel
Woolworths were doing precisely the is the central point of the Kimberly-Clark like a place responsible for distributing
Dexion Case Study – Kimberly-Clark

6. “Implementing this system now allows us to be proactive
and add more value to our clients’ businesses.”
millions of cases per month of some of based on near term forecast aggregate
Australia’s biggest brands to every Coles, cubic requirements (ie NOT SKU x Qty
Woolworths’s and IGA supermarket in specific), create the Stock Transfer Order
the land. only 1 day in advance, still at total
requirement level (not vehicle-specific),
He points toward a series of coloured charts
and the local DC operators determine
pinned to a staff noticeboard. Bright
rectangles graph the monthly progress of which SKU x Qty to put onto the individual
measures such cross-docking, total pick vehicles only 4 hours in advance of vehicle
rate and selective pick rate. arrival. This turnaround time is still dropping.
Ideally, in future we’ll wait for the truck to
‘As a company we’ve got a charter of arrive on site before we specify which
constant innovation,’ notes Mario. ‘The SKU x Qty will be picked and loaded for
system now gives us such a detailed level that vehicle. The advantage is that we
of information that we’re really making maximise the availability of newly available
micro-adjustments all the time to get the stock, and avoid the need to continually ‘They’re not there yet, but they will be one and add more value to our clients’
most out of it.’ change plans made days earlier.’ day,’ Mario Carniato explains. ‘We’re already businesses.’
‘For example, deployment from NDCs to As well as fast-moving supermarket goods, seeing a higher level of logistical
Dexion and Kimberly-Clark designed their
RDCs used to be handled in great detail KCA also deals with some highly specialised organisation with customers like NSW
new DCs to meet projected demand and
by head office in Sydney’s Milson’s Point. Health. We introduced GTIN barcodes
and low-volume items for hospitals and technology in the year 2015. And while
The planners would create detailed Stock on all levels of packaging 30 years ago,
other specialised businesses through there’s plenty of room for the business to
Transfer Orders at SKU x Qty level for across our entire product range, even in
their B2B divisions. And while the grow, one suspects that Mario, Jeff and
specific truckloads 2-4 days in advance.’ the B2B divisions before they were really
receiving systems of these customers have
the rest of the team will have their eye on
‘With the redesigned processes, enabled nothing like the level of sophistication of being requested by customers, so that
a farther horizon long before then.
by better capability (ASRS, fat labels, and a Coles or Woolworths, the SSCC is still we’d be ahead of the curve. Implementing
RDS etc), planners now schedule vehicles uniformly applied. this system now allows us to be proactive
Dexion Case Study – Kimberly-Clark