Improving the delivery efficiency of odd sized mattresses in Kurlon

Abstract

It has been a few more years than five decades since the Karnataka Consumer Products Limited (KCPL) was established in 1962. The company aimed to provide accessory products for the purpose of relaxing and sleeping. In 1965, it introduced the concept product, rubberised coir mattresses, under the brand name “Kurlon” . Today, Kurlon is the largest producer of mattresses in India. They produce furnishings, which include bedsheets, cushions, bolsters and sheets; bedroom products, which includes cots, wardrobes and pillows; other living room and dining room products. The company’s products are also exported to various countries in Middle-east, Europe, SAARC and the South East and Far East countries . These products are produced in eleven different manufacturing factories, some of them designated for specific products, and dispatched from nine hubs in addition to these factories. Mattresses:- Kurlon manufactures and sells close to 80,000 mattresses every month. They have 5 manufacturing units for mattresses; two in Bangalore (Yeshwanthpur and Peenya), one each in Jagadia, Gwalior and Bhubaneshwar. Additionally, there are two hubs, at Delhi and Bhiwandi that act as transhipment units between factories respectively and Area Sales Offices (ASOs) for mattresses and also as cutting units for odd sized mattresses. Delhi hub is connected to Gwalior factory whereas Bhiwandi hub receives and places orders from Yeshwanthpur and Peenya factories. With a strong customer network of more than 5000 dealers, Kurlon has its presence everywhere in the country. The dealers place the orders with of the 70 ASOs who in turn direct them to respective factories or hubs. These ASOs also act as warehousing units. It produces three types of mattresses depending on the material used and there are various variants among them; Rubberised Coir (42 variants), Spring (25 variants) and Foam (23 variants). Though the variants have one the three base materials, the differences are determined by sizes, designs and other additional material used. As far as sizes are concerned, mattresses are sold in standard sizes and non-standard (odd) sizes. Standard sizes have been identified based on standard cot sizes and repetitive demand of sizes over the years. These are permutations of dimensions that vary between Lengths 72”, 75”, 78”, 80”& 84” and Widths 30”, 36”, 42”, 48”, 60”& 72”. ASOs stock standard size mattresses and the inventory is ideally based on demand forecast. Kurlon placed an online demand forecasting system, ‘Symphony’, which calculates the sales for each standard sized variant for the last three months and places order with the factory by itself eliminating the manual labour. For all accounting purposes and generating various reports the company uses ‘Tally’ software. It recently started implementing SAP in some of its ASOs. Kurlon plans to integrate all three softwares to build a robust ERP system.