BackgroundBMW of Wichita is a luxury car dealership owned by Walser Automotive Group and located in Wichita, Kansas. With the new opening of the authorized dealership, they needed help with inventory management of stocked accessories. After seeing the actual case of the automated vertical warehouse, they purchased a 5.8m high Modula automated vertical warehouse (VLM) and stored 85% of the inventory on the first floor of their accessories department. This gives them the storage space they need for spare parts while keeping all their inventory within easy reach.Pain PointsLike many car dealers, BMW of Wichita handles a wide variety of parts. To avoid the risk of these valuable items being stolen, dealers often store parts on two floors, making retrieval and tracking time-consuming. This was obviously not the best way to use space, so BMW of Wichita wanted to find a way to optimize its auto parts storage.SolutionThe BMW of Wichita purchased a 6m-high Modula VLM, which covers a total floor area of 14.3㎡ and a storage capacity of about 84m³.
Initially, spare parts manager Bob Carlini was not convinced that Modula would be an effective solution to their tight warehouse space and spare parts management issues. He said: “It is impractical to rely on a machine to save on rent expenses. What we need is more space.” “When we saw the Modula, I believed it could be done!”
Modula VLM trays are equipped with adjustable metal partitions. Through flexible adjustment of the partitions, auto spare parts of different shapes and sizes can be reasonably stored.
In addition, the security function of the Modula system can prevent unauthorised personnel from accessing the items stored in the machine. All operations inside the machine and the personnel performing the operation are under the control of the system, and the safety of valuable spare parts is guaranteed to the greatest extent.
Modula WMS inventory management software has been perfectly integrated with BMW of Wichita’s global dealer management system, which enables daily tasks such as product picking, storage, receiving, and delivery to be handled quickly and accurately, and work efficiency and accuracy have been greatly improved.
Bob Carlini, spare parts manager, said: “I would recommend Modula to anyone in the auto spare parts industry, and even any other field that needs inventory management can choose Modula to manage inventory.”
