Parcel - October 2008 - (Page 25)

pletion of monthly featured product would be no more than seven days. We have been 100% successful in meeting this target. Last, but certainly not least, we needed to improve the proﬁtability of the fulﬁllment center. Although I can’t divulge speciﬁc numbers, this initiative has improved proﬁtability over 400% from purely manual fulﬁllment operations. DEARTH: Fantastic! Have you been able to identify any additional beneﬁts? LOEBBAKA: We sure have! First, we now have an avenue to scale with our current — and future — clients, regardless of their growth plans. We have solutions in place where they can easily grow with us based on need. We are also now better able to maintain consistent stafﬁng and currently require half the amount of staff previously needed to complete daily workloads. On a related note, it had previously taken around 70 resources to ship 40,000 packages during featured product cycles — it now requires only 18. This has permitted us to focus on our core team members and minimize augmentation via temporary stafﬁng, which also reduces productivity loss and costs related to constant training. Another unanticipated beneﬁt was the ability to leverage the application software delivered with the automation solution in other areas of our operation, such as our hand-pack stations that were still needed for non-conveyable types of product. This allowed us to have a common packaging and host system interface platform that could then be used for all packages shipped rather than just a subset. Clearly the cost savings from additional development and maintenance was a very nice added bonus! Finally, we now have an electronic means of conﬁrming shipment and manifesting completion which gives us additional accuracy — and security — gains over purely manual packaging and hand-entry validation. DEARTH: Do you have future enhancement or expansion ideas queued up? LOEBBAKA: I don’t want to give too much away, but we are looking at a couple of near-term additions. For example, capturing actual shipment weight after packaging via in-motion scale is something in which we are very interested. DEARTH: How long did the project take? LOEBBAKA: All told, we were roughly one year from beginning to end, but that included a fairly lengthy pilot period in which we were experimenting with different types of consumable packaging material based on end-customer desire as well as overall package presentation. At the end of the day, we still had to keep product moving out the door while this was in progress. DEARTH: Was this done in-house, or did you leverage external resources? LOEBBAKA: It was a combination. We initiated and led the overall project and performed software modiﬁcations required on our host systems. Due to both resource constraints and material and speciﬁc expertise needs not immediately available inhouse, we teamed with external vendors for different aspects of the solution. Xpedx was the distributor of the overall solution and Ivex supplied materials. System Packaging built and delivered the automated packaging machinery and its controls. TranSystems|ESYNC partnered with System Packaging to build out the application and integration software that provided the integration between the packaging equipment and our host systems, as well as the user interface and utilities necessary for our pickers and packers. This was the application that was then leveraged for the handpack stations. DEARTH: Looking back, was there anything you would have done differently — any ﬁnal advice for the readers? LOEBBAKA: Do your homework and plan well. Although it sounds obvious, the ﬁrst step is to ensure that you have a clear understanding of the business needs and solution goals. Know your environment and the resource pool and skill sets available internally so that you can understand what you need to get externally. Design and plan well, then execute against the plan. Test aggressively. Above all else, let common sense prevail! Dennis Dearth is Director of Technical Services for TranSystems | ESYNC, a supply chain strategy, design and implementation services company. For more information, contact Dennis at dldearth@transystems.com, call 419-8422210 or visit www.esync.com. www.PARCELindustry.com October 2008 25 http://www.esync.com http://www.speedeedelivery.com http://www.speedeedelivery.com http://www.PARCELindustry.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Parcel - October 2008

Parcel - October 2008 Contents Editor's Note What Would Augello Say? Best Practices Survey Results Going with the Flow Is Your Parcel Network Optimized? Last (Mile), but Not Least Moving From Manual to Automated Fulfillment A Race for Excellence Making Ends Meet Is Your Job Killing You? Software Selection Demystified Controlling Costs On the Mark Product Profile New Products & Services Advertiser Index Wrap Up

Parcel - October 2008

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