Global Air Conditioning Leader Daikin Goes Live with Manhattan SCALE™ at New Sydney DC

The world’s leading air conditioning manufacturer, Daikin, has officially switched on the ignition to Manhattan Associates’ Manhattan SCALE^TM warehouse management solution (WMS) at its new Daikin Park distribution centre (DC) in Warwick Farm, Sydney.

Manhattan SCALE serves as an all-encompassing automated warehouse solution to optimise manufacturing, fulfilment, and dispatch operations at Daikin Park – the largest air conditioning DC in Australia. By offering end-to-end visibility and flexible control over DC operations, the new solution allows Daikin to better manage and expand operations to meet the huge growth the company has experienced in Australia over recent years.

“By upgrading the Daikin Park facility with Manhattan SCALE, we are now able to take back full control of our operations by having better access to warehouse, transport & logistics and customer data. During a high-pressure time, like the one we are currently experiencing with the pandemic, this information has been extremely valuable. Having this kind of visibility allows us to make better business decisions to improve efficiencies and customer experiences,” said Michael Trad, head of SCM & IT, ANZ at Daikin. “Since going live with the Manhattan system, we are able to track our products at every point throughout the supply chain. This enhancement has significantly boosted the level of information we can share with our delivery drivers and customers, so that they are kept informed about all aspects of their orders.”

As part of Daikin’s wider business strategy, the company recently consolidated six distribution centres into the new 33,000-square-metre Daikin Park facility, making it a central hub to house the company’s raw materials, spare parts, finished goods and manufacturing supplies. Daikin Park, which has achieved massive cost savings for the company, operates with an outbound volume of 9,000 orders per day with an inventory capacity of over 40 thousand cubic metres.

“The Manhattan SCALE solution is able to plan out in advance how many pallets are going outbound, where they are being delivered and in what order, which allows Daikin to load its trucks much more effectively,” said Raghav Sibal, managing director of Australia and New Zealand for Manhattan Associates. “By having access to real-time data, such as driver and delivery information, Daikin now has the ability to optimise the delivery journey and offer very precise delivery status information to its customers.”

Daikin’s decision to upgrade Daikin Park with the Manhattan solution was part of its business plan to move away from relying on a 3PL and to bring its WMS in-house. With the Manhattan SCALE WMS now at the core of the new DC, Daikin has gained the visibility needed to evaluate, manage and innovate operations to make big improvements for the business and its customers.

“To ensure the solution was tailored to fit Daikin’s unique business needs, we collaborated closely with the company to maximise the level of flexibility and configurability the solution was able to achieve, and to make sure staff were trained up and ready to transition into using the new system,” said Rahul Pillai, senior principal consultant at Manhattan Associates. “Overall, the project has been a big success and we are very pleased to have helped Daikin achieve its goal of operating self-sufficiently.”