ant Technologies to become a strategic partner of Smart Logistic Group

Ant Technologies and Smart Logistic Group (SLG), Russia’s largest logistic chain operator, have announced the start-up of a strategic partnership to implement a management automation project in respect of SLG’s chain of warehouses across Russia. Smart Logistic Group is a subsidiary of Uniform International Chain of Customs Warehouses (UNCCW), a corporation established to implement the Great Silk Way Project, a large-scale, federal-level networking project designed to provide the full range of logistic services.

At the initial stage of that project, ant Technologies will automate the warehouse premises having a total area of 80,000 square meters at the SLG Domodedovo industrial logistic complex in the Moscow Region. The Logistic Vision Suite, a software suit that is already successfully used to manage certain leading companies operating in the Russian 3PL market, has been chosen to be a uniform software platform for the entire project.

The choice of the Logistic Vision Suite was made by the management of SLG as the project implementer based on the results of a competitive bidding with participation of a number of leading vendors of top foreign WMS systems in the Russian market.

"We were interested in procuring that the WMS and the required equipment (servers, software, Wi-Fi equipment, manual and stationary terminals, etc.) are supplied by a single provider on a “turn-key” basis,” said Vladimir Yelin, Chairman of the Board of Smart Logistic Group. “The key requirements for the future IT provider and the WMS itself boiled down to several mandatory conditions: the partner company should be among the top five Russian vendors and be able to promptly and easily adapt the system to meet customer-specific needs, provide the optimum replicability, independently deliver all necessary hardware and provide continuous technical support. Not only are ant Technologies and Pilot Group well-known to logistic operators but, in our opinion, it is ant Technologies who is able to provide competent solutions for all of the above requirements.”

“Given the large scale of the tasks faced by Smart Logistic Group, we did our best to formulate a comprehensive solution capable of fully meeting both the present and future warehouse logistics needs of a professional ЗPL operator,” said Alexander Usov, CEO of ant Technologies. “In our solution, we used the most advanced technologies and the rich functionality of the Logistic Vision Suite, a product that has already proved to be very useful for some 3PL companies.”

Under the contract to automate the SLG Domodedovo logistics complex, a basic system called Warehouse Vision will be deployed across more than 100 workstations to provide multifunctional automation of all warehousing operations. The comprehensive solution proposed by ant Technologies also includes the deployment of a modern billing system designed to control all mutual settlements with customers and a module called Link Manager for easily and quickly creating interfaces with the accounting systems of the customers. The functionality of the solution will be further expanded with the use of the Logistic Intelligence module, an add-on designed to generate, store and process warehousing data using the various analytic technologies incorporated in the Business Intelligence module. The Logistic Intelligence module provides real-time information in support of a decision-making system and an analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs) and data needed for strategic analysis and activity planning of the warehouse complex. All those tools will enable Smart Logistic Group to meet the internationally accepted quality standards for professional 3PL operators.

In addition to the deployment of the software platform, ant Technologies will deliver and install various hardware components such as IBM server hardware, Motorola (Symbol) wireless equipment and data collection terminals, and Zebra Technologies commercial label printers.

The partners have also agreed to co-operate in establishing a Training Center to train specialists in logistics and hold business workshops and conferences. The Training Center will be designed to provide a continuous training process for staff at various competency levels, provide in-depth industry expert assessments and implement SLG’s corporate values. The Training Center will also offer personnel training services in certain specialties to third-party companies.

This project will begin a strategic partnership between ant Technologies and SLG as the logistic company plans to launch some 500,000 square meters of warehouse space within the next 5 years to offer a variety of safe custody and handling services, from conventional storage at +18-20 ^oС to deep freezing at - 26-32 ^oС.

The SLG Domodedovo complex will be put into operation under the control of the Logistic Vision Suite in late January 2008.

About Smart Logistic Group:

Joint-Stock Company « Smart Logistic Group » (SLG) was created in July, 2007 by the shareholders of the corporation « Uniform international network of customs warehouses » (ЕМСТС) for realization of the scale network project under the same brand, on granting a full package of logistical services.

The purpose of the project - creation of complex logistical system which will connect manufacturers and consumers of Russia, Europe, countries of the Southeast Asia and Northern America. Within the framework of the project for the nearest five years it is planned to master about 500 thousand sq. meters of the warehouse areas of class "A", capacity up to 1.0 million pallet-places in the Russian cities with the population 1 million and more on strategic important transport directions of the country.