Food Logistics serves the entire food supply chain industry with targeted content for manufacturers, retailers, and distributors.
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42 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 • FOOD LOGISTICS www.foodlogistics.com SECTOR REPORTS S O F T W A R E & T E C H N O L O G Y W ith technology ofering new ways to make warehouse operations more efcient, the warehouse can become a competitive advantage for a company that manages food and beverage inventory. While automa- tion ofers advantages in the areas of dock management, put-away, sortation, picking and tracking, deploying such tools requires a warehouse control system (WCS). In order to synchronize the automated functions with other warehouse tasks, many companies also fnd it necessary to have a warehouse manage- ment system (WMS), which can be viewed as the "brains" of the warehouse. While this article focuses on warehouse man- agement, software providers encour- age users to take a comprehensive view of business management soft- ware. Just as WCS and WMS have evolved over time, so have transporta- tion management systems (TMSs) and demand planning and fulfillment applications. Each solution has the ability to react and respond to supply chain disruptions as they occur. But each also tradi- tionally operates within a "silo" and does not take into account the constraints across the different application areas. As warehouse managers consider manage- ment systems for these different "silos," they will find it easier to manage the different functions if they can easily interface with each other. According to Material Handling Insti- tute (MHI) 2014 Industry Report, material handling executives' top three challenges are: 1) Controlling cost-to-serve; 2) Optimizing the distribution network footprint; and 3) Integrating technology solutions and systems across functions and channels. The MHI report identifies two major stra- tegic priorities for the supply chain: supply chain analytics and multi-channel fulfillment. These two priorities are closely interrelated. Analytic tools harness data from both internal and external sources to produce insights that can reduce costs while improv- ing service quality, the MHI report notes. These tools have become more important as companies need to fulfill orders from mul- tiple customer types. "You have these different channels of orders coming in; different service require- ments," says Shyam Kirshna, executive vice president at Softeon, the Reston, Va.-based software provider. Retail and wholesale customers, and even individual consumers (through web stores), have different order ful- fillment preferences and constraints. "What are the best transportation strategies; should I use UPS or LTL? Or how should I use my own fleet more optimally? How do I decide what's the best DC to drop an order?" Krish- na asks rhetorically. "You improve customer service based on these order fulfillment pref- erences or DC rules that you define through the distributed order management solution." The solution, he says, is not only to effec- tively address multi-channel fulfillment, but also provide real-time visibility across the entire DC landscape. "We have new automated data flows that allow us to make sure we always have real- time business analytics and full control, so customers can change direction fast–in the face of consumer demand," says Dan Sanker, president and CEO of CaseStack Inc., the North Fayetteville, Ark.-based 3PL. Multi-channel fulfillment raises costs Order fulfillment is especially critical in a multi-channel setting compared to a tra- ditional brick and mortar setting because it represents significantly higher costs: up to 20 percent of online-order revenue, which is about four times the proportion for traditional How Warehouse Analytics Empowers Warehouse Management Time for seamless integration with demand planning, fulfillment and TMS. By Elliot Maras • Lima, Peru-based Supermercados Peruanos uses Logfire's WMS to gain more control over its supply chain and improve inventory replenishment at its supermarkets and hypermarkets. • HighJump Software's advanced fulfill- ment application can provide the ability to dynamically schedule deliveries and manage delivery to the customer with back-end tracking and reporting. Photo: Highjump Software Photo: Supermercados Peruanos