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About Sitt Tatt Logistics |
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Established in 1961, Sitt Tatt specialises in logistics consulting and solutions, districentre operations, distribution management and value-added services. Sitt Tatt boasts customers ranging from diverse industries, including Solectron and Teleplan in the electronics segment, B-Braun Medical Supplies in the pharmaceutical market, Japan Tobacco International in the security-stringent tobacco industry, Amway, Nestle and Pokka Ace in the fast moving consumer goods segment, and TotalFinaElf Malaysia in the lubricants market. Its strategic partnerships are with international freight forwarders Danzas AEI, DHL and Expeditor. Sitt Tatt has revenues of more than RM20 million annually, employs over 160 people and manages over 650,000 square feet of warehouse space in the country. It is also one of the pioneer local logistic/distribution companies to have WMS in place. For more information on Sitt Tatt, visit www.sittat.com. |
Sitt Tatt approaches the adoption of the EXceed WMS with several goals, the first being to attain the fastest payback period possible.
According to Looi, in the logistics and distribution industry, payback needs to be within five years, that being the estimated time for any IT investment to be considered useful. At the end of this period, a company is often forced to make further enhancements or upgrades, hence adding on to the overall IT cost.
"Therefore, it is crucial that we can optimise the WMS immediately from its ‘go live’ date. Otherwise, we will not have the time to extract the maximum value from the IT investment," Looi stresses.
To achieve this objective, Sitt Tatt garnered full support from its top management in finding the best and fastest possible mechanism to implement and adopt EXceed.
To reduce dependency on the vendor as well as keeping a cap on consultancy fees, Sitt Tatt resorted to forming an internal implementation team, comprising five handpicked employees.
"All the team members have their routine day-to-day functions, so the implementation work requires additional effort that taps their resources to the limits," Looi says. He credits the team’s good performance to dedication, and understanding attained from working with the previous WMS.
The five makes up the first tier of Sitt Tatt employees trained to use EXceed. They train up other executives and officers in the company, who in turn, assist in workshops to coach the lower level users on the system.
Due to the lack of WMS experts in Malaysia, Looi considers it a continuous challenge to retain similarly skilled personnel in the company.
"In fact, the retention of well-trained staff is critical to the success of the WMS," he observes.
Although it is too early to gauge the performance of the WMS, Looi discloses some immediate benefits from the system.
"For one, it is Windows-based and hence, much more user-friendly than the previous Unix-based system. Executives using its functionalities can better concentrate on the management and control of their operations, rather than focus on how to make the functionalities work," he says.
At this point, the system appears to be able to support Sitt Tatt’s entire operations, as well as enabling the rollout of new SCM and logistical services as hoped.
Looi reveals that ultimately, the WMS will be measured according to improvements in four key performance indicators—customer service, operating efficiency, operations performance, and cost management control.