Schäfers Backstube

Pcdata is flexible and uncomplicated

In 1886, the bakery was founded by Ernst Kirchhof from Kändler with the construction of the current branch on Oberfrohnaer Strasse in Chemnitz. Successful years of expansion followed, including several renovations and extensions. In 1977, Gunter Schäfer passed the master baker’s exam, and the couple took over the former Priemer bakery in Karl-Marx-Stadt.

With the master craftsman exam of their son Dirk Schäfer in 2001, the phase of branch expansion began. By 2009, there were already nine branches and 48 employees, and by 2013, 20 branches and over 120 employees. In 2020, Schäfer’s Backstube became the oldest local company in Chemnitz-Rabenstein. Next year, the company plans to move into a new production facility with a café on Kalkstraße.

The implementation of a paperless picking system

For the new production facility, the implementation of a paperless picking system was planned from the start, although not in the current bakery plant due to space limitations. However, in 2019, the unexpected opportunity arose to acquire such a system at a favorable price from the insolvency estate of a bakery chain from Thuringia. After enough hardware such as displays, rails, and workstations became available, the company contacted the manufacturer to acquire the necessary software licenses. “Unfortunately, we encountered unexpected resistance from the vendor when trying to install the software on the used hardware,” says CEO Dirk Schäfer. “When it also became clear that we were working with an ERP system for which no interface existed yet, the vendor showed little interest in finding a solution with us. At that point, we had already become familiar with Pcdata at a trade fair and were impressed by how quickly and flexibly they responded to our particular situation,” Schäfer adds. Pcdata checked the existing hardware and quickly created an interface with the ERP system provider JF-Soft.

Saving unnecessary trips and time.

At the beginning of 2020, Pcdata’s software was successfully installed on the third-party hardware. Despite the tight space, the system immediately proved its worth in practice. Two parallel rails were installed for picking, and the order quantities for all branches can now be viewed at any time. This saves unnecessary trips and time.

The results spoke for themselves in a very short time. Dirk Schäfer reports: “Since the system went live, we have been distributing more branches and volume, but we’re doing it with the same number of hours as before. We also now have more security and consistent accuracy in shipping!” Based on these results and satisfaction with Pcdata, an expansion of the system is already planned for the new building.