COMPANY

Three multi-storey warehouses, a staff of about 50 employees, more than 90 publishers, c. 100,000 titles available and more than 10 million copies, up to 1,000 parcels every day – these are the key data of the logistics centre in Mainz-Hechtsheim.

1974 - the beginning

For two centuries, scores and books on music of the Schott publishing programme had been delivered directly from the publisher’s head office in downtown Mainz to customers throughout the world. Gradually, the publishing house became more and more successful and the publishing catalogue more and more comprehensive so that in the early 1970s the management looked for premises that would be suitable for setting up a distribution centre. Eventually, an area of land was purchased in the then newly developed industrial park of Mainz-Hechtsheim which was large enough to allow space for future expansion.

Expansion of warehouse and distribution area

In the 1990s, the development of the music distribution centre even sped up so that it was necessary to enlarge the distribution facilities by a pallet high-bay warehouse as well as expand the storage area and reorganise the dispatch department. In the meantime, it was not just Schott’s stock that was distributed, but also material from other publishing partners under the brand SMD – Schott Music Distribution. At the beginning of the new millennium the management decided to continue investing in the expansion of the distribution centre. Pallet racking became necessary, along with a bigger warehousing facility and a newly designed distribution area. Major investments were made in modern conveyor systems and future-oriented warehouse and distribution logistics. To ensure that our business partners and customers could easily reach our customer service team, a call centre was set up. All these investments had become necessary for us to be able to provide the best possible service to our business partners and customers.

 Founding of mds

On 1^st July 2004, the publisher distribution was founded as an independent limited company under the name “mds – music distribution services”. Other publisher catalogues from home and abroad were welcomed, and along with articles on a consignment basis from publishing partners, other articles were added to the mds distribution portfolio such as music accessories, audiobooks, manuscript paper and CDs. Nowadays, around 100,000 titles from more than 100 music publishing houses are consolidated via mds and sent to customers all over the world. 

Expansion of the distribution and service portfolio

mds pursues an offensive growth strategy. The know-how gained from working for the publishing sector, e.g. in handling an extensive range of small items, as well as their flexible infrastructure and a large number of internal resources in IT or customer and payment management are ideal prerequisites for mds to position themselves successfully in the market for demanding logistics services.

Due to the constant growth and the steady further development of mds, the systems were completely modernized.

In 2011/12, the new and highly efficient warehouse management system pL-Store with integrated pick-by-voice solution was implemented. This warehouse management system monitors and controls the complex intralogistics processes and converts all processes from incoming goods to order picking to outgoing goods in structured and efficient processes.

Since the end of 2014 mds has also been using SAP. By implementing the new SAP system, mds now benefits from a sustainable, flexible and adaptable ERP infrastructure and from fully integrated standardized processes with a highly transparent structure throughout the entire business process, from the customer's order to the procurement and dispatch of the goods.

Today, mds is not only one of the largest publishers' distribution centres in Europe, but also a valued partner of numerous national and international companies from different sectors with a wide range of services.