Pioneer Foods UK enhances operations

With substantial manufacturing plants in Wisbech, Wellingborough and Peterborough, Pioneer Foods UK is the UK’s leading cereal maker, providing own-label and branded manufacture and packaging services for many of the leading retailers and brands in the UK and around the world.

Logistex recently installed its LWS Reflex Warehouse Management Software into the Peterborough site to control the receiving and putaway of raw and packaging materials. LWS Reflex is a scalable and flexible system which allows the user to simply access the built in functionality as and when it is needed, from simple manual operations to a fully-fledged automated warehouse. There are 3 storage zones at Pioneer Foods UK; Raw materials, WIP (Work in Progress) and Finished Goods. The receiving process utilises EAN128 barcodes where available, but allows manual input if necessary. There are different stock allocation rules based on different customer requirements. The dynamic assignment of locations to segregate different allergens in the WIP store maximises location usage. The materials are released to the production environment where they are consumed and WiP and finished goods are created. The operation also handles the allocation and retrieval of finished goods to Despatch Orders. 

LWS Reflex provides stock control and visibility, and the automatic allocation of stock to orders means that the individual customer requirements, such as stock life to depot, are handled automatically. Also, because the FLT drivers are directed to pick the highest priority moves rather than the easiest ones to do, Pioneer UK can rest assured that the right pallet gets to the right place at the right time.

Jonathon Thorn, general manager at Pioneer Foods UK says: “The team at Logistex worked from initial consultation through to final handover, to understand our business needs, current processes and the potential growth of our capabilities. The team used that insight to build a software system that supports our business and reduces time within our supply chain to fulfil customer orders. This has made a significant difference to our business.”