The customer, an asset-based third-party logistics (or 3PL) company and transportation provider, boasts over 3 million feet of warehouse space in multiple locations on the East Coast, West Coast, and Midwest.
The thriving company provides warehousing, supply-chain innovation, transportation management, e-commerce fulfilment, and retail consolidation. They serve the unique needs of a diverse array of industries, including health and beauty, food and beverage, consumer packaged goods and retail, industrial and automotive, and private equity

The challenge:

They needed to increase their processing capacity for a particular long-standing client.

The company sought SC Codeworks’ help with their ability to handle the pick, pack and ship processes for the client in the event of:

• Heavy weekday order volumes
• Promotional campaigns
• The all-important holiday season.

In a best-case-scenario, they would maximize its capacity without raising costs.

So, did they succeed?

The SC Codeworks Solution:

After assessing their needs, Codeworks offered a software-solutions suite built off of its fully-integrated Enterprise WMS —a bedrock program from which this customer was already benefitting.

Codeworks synthesized the following additional solutions into existing operations, all without interrupting the workday flow of their order processes:

• T.L. Ashford labelling software, which automatically generates a barcode “license plate” when an order is received. The label lists the customer, product, box type and shipping method.
• Varsity Shipsoft, which assesses order accuracy with a “weigh-in-motion” scale. This scans the license plate and determines whether the weight of any particular carton is as expected.
• Hytek Conveyor Systems, which automates the outbound conveyor system.

Provided the Varsity program validates a particular order as correct, the parcel manifesting software automatically prints the shipping label. Then the carton gets hand sorted by a parcel carrier.

If the weight and bar code do not match, the carton gets diverted for hand inspection.

According to Brian Wager, Director of Domestic Operations, “Enterprise WMS has acted as a catalyst in improving our business. We have a powerful, stable and supported system that has enabled us to streamline and enhance our order fulfillment process. Codeworks behaves like a partner rather than a vendor. That attitude makes a world of difference.”

The Benefit:

For this customer, these Codeworks software solutions:

• Improved order accuracy and throughput monitoring
• Boosted efficiency and productivity
• Enhanced customer service
• Minimized the risk of human error in verifying orders
• Eliminated the need to write labels by hand
• Reduced labor costs
• Helped management better tailor employee responsibilities
• And importantly: boosted scalability

These cost-efficient solutions accomplished all this without increasing the overall cost of running the WMS. This better positioned their business for growth.

In the end, Codeworks helped their customer's client:

• Reach a fulfillment rate of 5,000 orders per day
• Double their throughput.

Frank Gilber, Operations Manager, proclaims, “With the capabilities of Codeworks, our operation has seen significant growth in customers’ confidence in servicing their needs. Their WMS has been a key driver to reducing labor cost, improving our accuracy, and reducing the order cycle time.”