Question: What can automotive-brand logistics learn from spare parts logistics?
Lösken: In particular, we can learn from the customer focus, which our colleagues in spare parts logistics demonstrate. Our Porsche customers want to know more about the supply chains behind our business. The need for information has increased. We have to make customers fans of the brand and this also includes logistics.
Question: Has Porsche neglected logistics in the past in terms of media or advertising?
Lösken: We indeed have to make more of our logistics and also gear it towards the customer. Unfortunately, there is too little public communication about successful logistics concepts. The customer practically assumes that the logistic runs by itself.
Question: Is spare parts logistics a differentiator from other competitors - the customer doesn’t like to wait eight weeks for an exterior mirror!?
"Service will be a differentiator as we deliver a premium product and must also offer premium service around it."
Marc Lösken, Brand logistics, Porsche AG
Lösken: Spare parts logistics may be less decisive for the first purchase, but right after that, logistics has to work. Service will be a differentiator as we deliver a premium product and must also offer premium service around it. And yes - with the shift toward electric vehicles, we also have to promote this as a distinguishing feature. We can do logistics better than our competitors.
Question: You were in charge of Porsche’s spare parts logistics for more than 15 years - what has changed?
Lösken: The scope has doubled in that time. We still did a lot of analogous work in the early 2000s. Now, this is a thing of the past. At the same time, my colleagues are experiencing an increase in complexity and changes in our markets. That is why it was important to work with systems that could flexibly grow with us.
Marc Lösken, Brand logistics, Porsche AG
Question: But the exterior mirror is still an exterior mirror...
Lösken: That’s true. When I started to work at Porsche, we were still very much focused on Europe and North America. Today, we earn a third in China. On top of that, trade rules are becoming more and more individualized. Russia, for example, requires special labels on all the parts. We have to deposit certificates. And with electric vehicles, we are developing new supply chains.
Question: The complexity of intra-logistics is increasing.
Lösken: Yes, we must consider the legal requirements of our trading partners, and that also means new processes in the warehouse.
Question: Do you supply the whole world from Sachsenheim?
Lösken: That is our central warehouse. We serve 900 Porsche centers worldwide from there. German-speaking or French customers are served directly and other customers via 16 other regional warehouse locations. We handle about 25,000 to 30,000 order lines a day.
Question: WITRON has automated the warehouse, but got in contact with Sachsenheim via an IT project - what are the challenges for automation?
Lösken: We must adapt the tools. The systems must communicate with each other and exchange data. We are creating a logistics IT platform and use forecasting systems, energy management systems, and classic ERP applications. All of them must communicate with a material handling system and execute decisions made there or make suggestions for optimization. Our goal is an end-to-end platform.
Question: Will you still need highly automated systems in the future - after all, the need for spare parts for electric vehicles is declining?
Lösken: We had once calculated with one-third fewer parts. So far, that has not been confirmed. We have enough to do, and with more vehicles in the markets, we still need automated logistics in the background.
Porsche relies on long-term partnerships in intra-logistics. Since 2000, Porsche and WITRON have implemented various projects in the automated and manual logistics environment. The heart of the central spare parts warehouse in Sachsenheim is a highly dynamic automated small parts warehouse (AS/RS) designed and realized by the general contractor WITRON. Currently, more than three million order items are shipped from here every year. Almost 90,000 different items or material numbers are available in the AS/RS, in the ZEL even a total of 130,000 different items - everything from a single screw to a complete hard top. WITRON describes the function of the 27-aisle AS/RS (395,000 tote storage locations) as an Order Picking System (OPS). The goods-to-person solution is perfectly suited to handle a very broad range of products, as is common in the spare parts business. The OPS for Porsche has been designed for maximum flexibility, allowing spare parts to be stored in totes with different heights, in totes with inserts, or on trays that hold several small load carriers. The ergonomic, multi-functional pick and pack workstations are staffed as required depending on the order load. In this way, the system can respond flexibly to fluctuations. “A Porsche is a premium product. Our customers, therefore, expect optimum quality at all times and in all places of the world - including spare parts”, says Marc Lösken. “If a retailer orders a spare part at Porsche today, it will be supplied within 24 hours in Europe and within 48 hours in all other regions of the world.” The minimum throughput time in the fully automated logistics area is around 60 minutes in regular daily business. Around two-thirds of all items are actually managed through the AS/RS in Sachsenheim. In addition to the automated small parts warehouse, WITRON also integrated a forklift guiding system with approx. 130 users. It optimizes the material flow from receiving to shipping below the SAP warehouse management system. Moreover, there are interfaces between WITRON solutions and other sub-systems.
