The Customer

Fantasy Farms is a sustainable agriculture company specializing in organic produce, heirloom fruits, and eco-conscious farming practices. With a focus on community-supported agriculture, it delivers fresh, locally grown food directly to consumers and regional markets.

The Provider

Fintech, a business solutions provider based in Tampa, Florida, offers scan-based trading (SBT) capabilities tailored to retailers and their suppliers, among other solutions.

One reason for Fantasy Farms’ success is its partnership with Fintech, a business solutions provider, which leverages their expertise and solutions in scan-based trading (SBT).

In the SBT model, ownership of a product transfers from the supplier to the retailer only for that brief period—in many cases, mere seconds—between when an item is scanned at the checkout counter and the customer pays for it.

While it’s not without risk, Fantasy Farm’s use of SBT, along with direct-store-delivery (DSD) and solid logistics, has been key to its growth.“We’re happy with the decision that we’ve made,” says Daniel Sabogal, chief executive officer and founder of Fantasy Farms.

Fresh flowers, which are Fantasy Farm’s core product, require tons of care in growing and shipping. They’re vulnerable to weather events and any breaks in the cold chain.

To minimize the risk of mishaps in transit, Fantasy Farms has partnered with a shipper to use a direct-store-delivery arrangement, in which the flowers move directly from the company’s farms to the stores where they’ll be sold. Shipments can reach any ZIP code in the United States, including within Alaska and Hawaii, between 48 and 72 hours after the flowers are harvested.

Fantasy Farms’ packaging keeps the flowers hydrated and as protected as possible while they’re in transit. Once the flowers reach a store, the packaging converts to a small, disposable point-of-sale display.

Risky Business

Even once the flowers arrive at their retail destinations, the risks don’t stop. Store employees may neglect to follow the display instructions or may place the display where it’s not as visible as it could be. “A combination of so many risks are associated with the nature of the product,” Sabogal says.

It may initially seem counter-intuitive that Fantasy Farms would decide to shift to a scan-based trading program. However, the SBT arrangement offers the company a way to differentiate itself from its competitors. “It is a matter of doing SBT in the most educated way possible,” Sabogal says.

When Sabogal started Fantasy Farms about 25 years ago, he employed a more traditional business model and served both wholesalers and traditional grocery stores. About a decade ago, Sabogal wanted to innovate and add more value for his customers, while also putting some distance between Fantasy Farms and its competitors.

He met representatives from Fintech at a trade show. When they brought up the concept of scan-based trading, Sabogal was skeptical. “I looked at them and thought, ‘Why would we ever do such a thing?’”

However, Sabogal and his team came to realize that SBT could help them gain access to more clients and develop a competitive edge. “Through their partnership, we started servicing some convenience stores and then the business grew,” Sabogal says.

The primary benefit to retailers who participate in an SBT arrangement is obvious: they free up capital because they own the products they’re selling for, in some cases, a few seconds. Inventory has traditionally been one of the largest expenses for many retailers, says Mark Landgren, Fintech’s senior vice president and general manager, SBT.

Getting into the Details

What do suppliers gain? Access to point-of-sale data, in real or near real time. The data often is more detailed than what they otherwise might obtain, including sales per store, per day, and per stockkeeping unit (SKU).

This information allows a company that sells, for instance, greeting cards—one of the first products SBT was used for, Landgren says—to quickly see which designs are hot sellers and which are moving more slowly, by store. It then can adjust the amount of each design it delivers to each location.

Previously, suppliers might have obtained similar information one or two months after a sale was completed, says Tad Phelps, chief executive officer of Fintech. At that point, it’s difficult to use the data to adjust operations and inventory levels in ways that can boost sales and cut waste. With SBT, suppliers get “headlights into the data in a much more timely manner,” Phelps says.

This detailed and timely sales information is particularly helpful for products such as flowers, which have a life span of seven to 14 days, Landgren says. It helps Fantasy Farms determine how many of each plant and color to grow, and then which bouquet mixes are most likely to sell in different locations. Fantasy Farms can use this information to minimize waste and boost sales, benefiting both itself and its retail partners.

In addition, it’s not uncommon for suppliers using SBT to be paid as their products are sold, Landgren says. For a perishable product like flowers, this could mean suppliers are paid within days. In contrast, some retailers are delaying other supplier payments out to several months.

How It Works

The Fintech SBT platform is mapped to each retailer’s point-of-sale (POS) system so it can access daily sales data. At a minimum, this data needs to include the UPC, store number, item cost and date. Fintech has connected to more than 150 retailers and a multitude of POS systems.

Once the Fintech SBT platform has accepted the daily POS data from the retailer, it populates it within a proprietary database that suppliers can use. They can set up automatic daily transfers of the data in a format they can move into their own systems, to view inventories and sell-through information. Suppliers that don’t have a system that will accept this information can log into Fintech’s portal to view and/or download reports.

Launching the Fintech SBT solution typically doesn’t require a great deal of IT resources, Landgren says. The solution is cloud-based and can be accessed from just about anywhere.

A Phased Rollout

Fantasy Farms launched its SBT program with a limited rollout with one of its convenience store clients. “That led to a complete shift in our business,” Sabogal says. Now, the SBT operating model, along with direct-store-delivery, is core to Fantasy Farm’s success.

It hasn’t always been an easy change. Initially, Fantasy Farms’ expectations regarding the volume of product that would sell-through, as well as the prices and cost structures, were not realistic, Sabogal says. In part, this was because the sell-through quantities Fantasy Farms was accustomed to when working with larger grocery stores were different than they would be at convenience stores.

Particularly with convenience stores, shipments can’t be too big, or it’s likely that some inventory will go to waste. Yet if they’re too small, logistics costs as a percentage of the overall expense will jump. In some cases, logistics can account for 50% of costs.

“It was a steep learning curve,” Sabogal says, adding that the company had to tweak its initial model. As Fantasy Farms became more adept with direct store delivery and scan-based trading, it has been able to develop a business model that is difficult for many competitors to replicate.

After starting with a few hundred stores, Fantasy Farms now uses SBT with thousands of locations. Sabogal and his team can analyze the data to tell, for instance, how sales of roses compare to sales of mixed bouquets, or how well yellow roses are selling. “We can tweak all of these variables and then start to see trends that maximize sales and our margins,” Sabogal says.

Using the data helps mitigate the risk inherent in the SBT business model by helping Fantasy Farms grow revenue at store level, minimize shrink, and control costs.

Adding Complementary Products

Fantasy Farms’ use of scan-based trading and direct-store-delivery has allowed it to expand its offerings by streamlining in-store operations for retailers. In addition to fresh flowers, the company now provides chocolate-covered fruit and baked fruit chips.

As Fantasy Farms has become adept at SBT, as well as direct-store-delivery, and because it handles many tasks the stores otherwise would have to handle, like configuring displays, it has been able to add complementary products in the outlets it’s already serving. Along with fresh flowers, Fantasy Farms now offers preserved roses, which can remain in the stores for several months, rather than a week or so. It also offers chocolate-covered fruit and baked pineapple, plantain, and other chips.

Recently, Fantasy Farms began using an artificial intelligence solution that analyzes sales data, looking for trends. It then identifies opportunities based on those trends, as well as red flags for products that are not selling well in particular areas or chains. This enables the company to forecast and plan for demand even more precisely.

Through Fantasy Farm’s vertical integration, its packaging solution, its expertise in scan-based trading and relationship with Fintech, and its use of direct-store-delivery, Sabogal says, it has gained a strong competitive edge.

Tech Partnership Sprouts Growth

The Challenge

Identify a strategy that adds value to Fantasy Farm’s retail customers and provides a competitive edge.

The Solution

Partner with Fintech to leverage its scan-based-trading technology, and with FedEx on a direct-store-delivery arrangement.

Results

Fantasy Farms’ customer base has grown to more than 8,000 locations regularly, and it can top 30,000 locations during holiday seasons.

Next Steps

Fantasy Farms has begun working with an AI solution to forecast and plan for demand with even greater accuracy.

The post Fantasy Farms and Fintech: A Blooming Success appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

Although I shifted course, my design background helped make my journey possible. Like many creative fields, fashion design is cutthroat and requires long hours, persistence, and the ability to handle criticism. My background also honed my ability to identify patterns in data that aren’t immediately obvious but can inform new directions. It also taught me how to tackle problems. In my role, I rally a group of smart people to innovate and solve those problems.

I’ve been at Rapid Robotics for three years, starting as chief marketing officer before taking on responsibility for the sales organization. About a year ago, I became CEO. I love the sales side of my job, where I get to interact with heads of supply chains at various companies. They’re creative problem solvers, and it’s energizing.

IL: What has been at the top of your agenda as CEO?

From our start in 2019, Rapid Robotics has had a vision of building a robotic workforce to complement the human workforce and eliminate labor shortages. We’re pursuing this goal a bit differently from many other companies. I try to approach everything from a customer-first mindset: What does the customer actually need? How can we offer a solution in a way that helps the customer quickly adopt it?

As we were figuring this out, I visited warehouse after warehouse, where I’d see a line of people doing monotonous, repetitive work. Sometimes, the lines were down simply because there weren’t enough people to do the work.

These observations helped lead to the latest evolution in the Rapid Robotics story. In our experience, units per hour is the metric that matters in much of the warehouse industry. Our robot is designed to stand at a line and pick, pack, and palletize with the speed of a human.

IL: What was behind the decision to create a stationary robot?

Given today’s technology, we needed to eliminate some of the variables to create a robot that could quickly pick and pack, as ours does. In this first phase, we chose to restrict mobility—though our robot is repositionable. It has the footprint of a human and can pack with speed comparable to a human.

It also has some special super-human features like on-board air so it can work anywhere.

IL: This meant changing the trajectory of the company. How did you decide to make this shift?

Until about a year ago, we used off-the-shelf robots. We used computer vision and AI to enable them to identify objects and determine how to put them in boxes, so they could handle the variability of ecommerce fulfillment.

Yet the sales cycle wasn’t moving as quickly as I thought it could, given the challenge we were addressing, and how our solution was better than others on the market.

Also at this time, I visited a brownfield facility. I soon recognized that even a compact work cell wasn’t going to work. There was too much existing infrastructure to work around. The thing that does work is a robot with the footprint of a human. Yet, it does not need to walk. Warehouses already have autonomous forklifts, AMRs and other moving equipment. More moving equipment would just add to the risk and disruption.

Plus, the current battery life of mobile robots means you have to stop and recharge them every few hours. That makes it hard to hit throughput goals.

Reinventing a robot with the footprint of a human, while maintaining high productivity and the ability to move from one task to the next, would eliminate these risks. We eliminated barriers and made it less disruptive for the customer. That helps accelerate adoption.

IL: How did you get your investors to buy in?

It was scary as a relatively new CEO to say to our board, ‘I need a few million more dollars.’ Rapid has undergone a few pivots, and it took time to convince them this was the right move. Plus, there’s so much hype in the humanoid market. Investors were skeptical about whether we could compete with other companies that are raising billions or hundreds of millions of dollars. But as I sometimes joke, ‘Some robots are built for viral videos—but viral videos don’t pack boxes.’

IL: How did you get employees on board?

It was easy to get buy-in because they now have a clear direction of what needs to happen. Then it becomes: ‘How do you make the impossible possible—and create a new robot within a reasonable timeframe?’ This led to minimizing phase one mobility and using some off the shelf components, rather than reinventing every wheel.

I keep employees informed about what our customers need. Keeping the customer front and center helps everybody remain focused and understand that what they’re doing matters.

IL: How do you lead a company that’s growing and changing so quickly?

It’s important to have a mix of experience. More experienced people know how big companies run, while our startup experience gives us the freedom to pursue the future and imagine what could be possible.

The team still adapts, moves quickly, and is willing to break the rules, without going too far. I tell them, ‘Anything’s on the table—just nothing illegal. No one’s going to jail or getting hurt.’

IL: What qualities do you look for when hiring people?

I ask for examples of how they took responsibility and corrected when things went wrong. There’s no room in a startup for blaming others. I even rewarded an employee who admitted he had rushed and ordered the wrong part. We all make mistakes. You recognize it and then course-correct.

IL: Who do you look up to?

People who can rally others to do brave things. Greta Thunberg, for instance, is impressive—so young, with bold ideas and the conviction to act on them.

IL: Who would you trade places with?

A famous inventor. I would love to be in their heads at that moment of despair; the moment when you don’t know how you’ll pull something off. Then, almost suddenly, it shifts to: ‘Now I know what to do.’

No “I” in Team

When I was a relatively new manager, I had a weekly meeting with my boss. I started going through my list of what I’d accomplished. I remember vividly how she stood up and closed her office door. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. What’s happening?’

She sat back down and said, ‘You are now running a team. I don’t want to hear again about what you are doing. This is about the impact of your team.’

That was about 25 years ago, but today I still intentionally think about the team—how is the team being productive and effective? It’s not so much about what I’m doing; it’s about knocking down barriers for what the team can do.

The post Betting on Robots Over Hype: ‘Viral Videos Don’t Pack Boxes’ appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

Allison Bennett Irion is director, supply chain research for Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)

RESPONSIBILITIES: Bring together cross-disciplinary analytical and experimental capabilities to support reliable, secure, and competitive domestic supply chains. Develop and execute a strategy to enhance ANL’s impact in supply chain research.

EXPERIENCE: Group leader and principal systems engineer, ANL; Officer in the U.S. Merchant Marine and Navy; Strategic Sealift Commander, Europe, Middle East and Africa; technical advisor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration; senior systems engineer, Sandia National Laboratories.

EDUCATION: M.S., systems engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; B.S. logistics and intermodal transportation, United States Merchant Marine Academy.

When I was growing up, my dad and I would go to the junkyard every weekend and get car parts. We built a 1962 Dodge Power Wagon from the panel up. We were doing engineering, but I never thought about it as that.

In high school, I had a cool internship through my public school district and the Texas Rangers baseball organization called the Richard Greene Scholarship Program. I’d do rotations of six weeks at, say, a soup kitchen and then at the mayor’s office. It taught me about connecting to a cause bigger than myself.

These experiences led me to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. I thought I would go into admiralty law. Then I was out at sea on September 11, which changed my mind.

I went to Sandia National Labs as an engineer. One of my first jobs was to use my knowledge of intermodal networks to identify how somebody could use one for a nefarious purpose.

Another project was analyzing an Olympics game to determine where to put radiation detectors. There were many smart nuclear physicists and other experts who knew about detectors, but not about seaports and terminal operations. Understanding both as a supply chain practitioner in a government space is rare.

Historically, people haven’t thought about supply chains in breakthrough research and science. Now, we have seat at the table. We’re asking questions about supply chain relative to advancements in, for instance, microelectronics. That’s new and exciting.

I’m currently leading an initiative to develop the strategy for a domestic critical material supply chain that can support the United States’ energy, economic, and national security needs. Our goal is to accelerate the building of secure and reliable sources of critical minerals and material. We’re evaluating technology and the actions we can take regarding sourcing, recycling, and supply chain dependability.

The Minerals to Materials Critical Material Supply Chain Research Facility is another exciting opportunity. I am leading a team at Argonne in partnership with nine other national laboratories for the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management to accelerate the development of a domestic critical material supply chain.

We want to validate nascent technologies, and bring together government, industry, and academia to address questions such as, ‘How can we de-risk domestic technologies at relevant scales by optimizing extraction and separation methods?’

When doors open, sometimes you have to say ‘Yes’ and walk through, even if there could be challenges. I’ve worked across many countries, experienced many interesting opportunities, and worked for causes that are bigger than myself.

Allison Bennett Irion Answers the Big Questions

1. If you could travel anywhere, and time and money weren’t constraints, where would you like to go?

I would visit a friend who lives in Antarctica. In this time, seeing all the happy penguins and having a little levity would be nice.

2. If you could throw a dinner party with anyone, who would top your invitation list?

Theodore Roosevelt tops the list. I’d talk with him about his Rough Riders and starting the National Park Service and get his views on conservation today. Next, I’d invite Winston Churchill to reflect on his visions and dreams for the post-war paradigm and to hear his take on modern geopolitics.

3. You have $1 million to start a new venture; what would you do?

I would focus on a philanthropic effort that dovetails with programs like the Department of Defense’s SkillBridge, which helps former members of the military transition to new fields. Many vets have a strong work ethic and know how to focus on doing hard things, often with grit, ingenuity and no complaints. These programs exist to a certain extent, but I would love to see more military vets transition to the supply chain profession.

The post Bringing Supply Chains to Breakthrough Research and Science appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

THE CUSTOMER

Blain’s Farm & Fleet is a family-owned-and-operated specialty retailer with 45 locations throughout Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Describing itself as The Modern General Store, the business was established in 1955 and is headquartered in Janesville, Wisconsin.

THE PROVIDER

Roadie, a UPS company, is a logistics management and crowdsourced delivery platform. Founded in 2014, Roadie offers businesses fast, flexible, and asset-light logistics solutions for last-mile delivery.

By partnering with Roadie to achieve same-day delivery for its customer base, Blain’s Farm & Fleet stays true to an ethos that has guided the retailer since it first began operating 70 years ago. It’s a company that treats its customers like neighbors and prides itself on providing quality products at fair and honest prices.

“We saw demand from our customers, through both direct feedback and the market shift in how customers—our neighbors—like to receive their goods,” says Eliza Ollinger, director and general manager of digital commerce at Blain’s Farm & Fleet.

The Midwest retailer markets itself as a one-stop shop, carrying everything from home goods to automotive parts, food and beverage selections to sporting and outdoor equipment, lawn and garden to farm and livestock supplies, and more. It even carries toys and games, a category that served as the catalyst for offering same-day delivery.

Blain’s in Toyland

As a lead-up to the holiday shopping period each year, all of Blain’s 45 stores celebrate toys in a big way by devoting large sections of floorspace to an enormous selection. The chain calls the promotion Toyland and it has been a cherished family tradition since 1957. Come late October, shoppers can find just about any toy they could possibly want, either in person or online.

In 2023, sensing the constraints of an earlier than usual cut-off date for holiday shipping by the traditional carriers who fulfill its online orders, Blain’s decided to try a different tack. It reached out to Roadie to see if the crowdsourced delivery platform could launch quickly to fill in the gap and extend those deadlines for its neighbors.

A GOOD MATCH

Many of the neighbors that Blain’s Farm & Fleet serves live in rural and farming communities so the company needed a last-mile delivery provider familiar with the nature of the territory. The retailer had networked with Roadie at business expos and implemented the platform in 2020, but prior to promoting it in December 2023, utilization was infrequent.

“We have a couple of other partnerships in that space, and we were specializing, and we still do specialize in rural delivery,” says Dennis Moon, COO at Roadie.

By tapping into a fleet of more than 200,000 independent drivers nationwide, Roadie enables retailers to offer local delivery in more than 97% of the United States.

Blain’s Farm & Fleet already had a well-received “buy online, pick up at drive-thru service” in place at its stores. However, in the spirit of continuing to adapt and expand its products and services to meet neighbors’ diverse lifestyles and needs, expedited door-to-door delivery began to make a lot of sense.

In late 2023, shipping constraints indicated it was the perfect time to promote the service in new ways. Encouraged by Roadie’s willingness and assurance it could scale demand, Blain’s Farm & Fleet decided to offer free same-day delivery (with a $35 order minimum) to its neighbors in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

The results were astounding. Within the first three weeks of implementing the service, Blain’s experienced a 738% surge in same-day delivery order volume and a 378% year-over-year increase in same-day delivery revenue compared to the same period in 2022.

Suddenly, what had initially been viewed as a stopgap measure to circumvent unusually early shipping cut-off dates began to look like an essential means of delivering merchandise to consumers. Demand was obviously there, so Blain’s decided to offer the same-day delivery option year-round.

ON THE GROUND

Roadie enables local delivery to more than 97% of U.S. households by providing access to more than 200,000 independent drivers nationwide. The service allows businesses to offer their customers delivery options for almost any industry—from florists to home goods.

Being a crowdsourced delivery platform enables Roadie to deliver unique benefits to a company like Blain’s Farm & Fleet. It often happens that some of the same neighbors the Midwest retailer considers its customers also happen to work for Roadie.

“We deliver in places where the population is maybe 1,000 people,” says Moon. “There’s a high likelihood it truly is your neighbor who has jumped onto the platform to perform the delivery. The benefit is they understand how farms work, and where things need to go.”

Being Neighborly

Such ready familiarity resonates with a business like Blain’s Farm & Fleet, which dates its origins to a time when two brothers, Claude and Bert Bain, simply wanted to do right by their neighbors.

“The business grew because we started carrying everything for our neighbors,” says Ollinger. “Our assortment evolved because we wanted to provide anything and everything anyone would need. We’re just here to serve our communities.”

The company has received compliments from neighbors who commend Roadie drivers for taking the time to learn, or who just seem to know intuitively, where to place goods that they’ve ordered. “We’ve been pleased with the Roadie service level,” Ollinger confirms.

Third-party delivery works well for many items in Blain’s inventory. Cumbersome items such as large bags of mulch, livestock feed, and pet food fall into that category.

“If an item is too heavy or too bulky for a typical passenger vehicle, we see more frequently that our neighbors like to have it delivered to them the same day via Roadie,” says Ollinger. “From our perspective, it solves a problem for our neighbors.”

Roadie typically doesn’t interface with a customer’s warehouse management system (WMS). “There’s no need,” explains Moon. “In ship-from-store situations such as Blain’s, they know if they have an item on hand.”

Meanwhile, the platform’s application program interface (API) is easy to integrate and can tie directly into potential customers’ systems.

“When somebody places an online order, and lives within range of a store, same day-delivery as part of the order process is always an option,” says Moon.

What varies is how retailers provide awareness to their end customers about same-day delivery and whether or not there’ll be a charge. Roadie leaves that kind of decision-making up to the retailer.

Roadie also strives to accommodate the ebbs and flows of businesses such as Blain’s. Spring generally sees an uptick in orders for lawn and garden supplies, for example, and then there is the retailer’s annual toy extravaganza, which jumpstarted the partnership in the first place.

During regularly scheduled conversations, the partners discuss potential improvements. “We’ll ask if they want to add SKUs we may not service,” says Moon. “Because Blain’s may have bigger items they want to start adding into the same-day network, we’ll ask if we need to get additional capabilities for our drivers—such as trailers or other equipment. We talk regularly to continually build onto the partnership and add more opportunities for both parties to succeed.”

Currently, Roadie doesn’t handle delivery of the larger agricultural equipment that Blain’s Farm and Fleet sells, but everything is up for discussion. “We continuously evaluate performance and consumer sentiment to understand how we can best evolve the same-day delivery service for our neighbors,” says Ollinger.

Exclusive Service

Blain’s Farm & Fleet relies on other providers to handle next-day and multiple-day shipping, but Roadie is its exclusive final-mile provider for same day delivery.

“Same-day delivery drives incremental business for us because consumers like the immediacy and the fact they can receive their goods within the day,” Ollinger notes.

“Roadie has increased our sales,” she concludes. “It has helped us better serve our neighbors because we’re able to deliver the products they want, when and how they want them.”

Casebook Study: One for the Roadie

The Challenge

Feeling constrained by traditional carriers’ shipping cut-off dates during an important holiday promotion period, specialty retailer Blain’s Farm & Fleet searched for a way to better serve its customers.

The Solution

Blain’s partnered with the logistics management and crowdsourced delivery platform Roadie, a UPS company, to offer same-day delivery for online holiday shopping.

Results

Within the first three days of implementing same-day delivery, Blain’s experienced a 738% surge in order volume and a 378% year-over-year increase in revenue compared to the same period one year earlier. The retailer decided to offer the option year-round.

Next Steps

As Blain’s continuously evaluates how it can better serve its customer base, Roadie offers considerations such as RoadieXD, a nationwide network of cross-docks that delves deeper into the supply chain.

The post Rural Retailer Reroutes the Final Mile appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

THE CUSTOMER

Founded in 1985, StarTech.com manufactures a broad portfolio of connectivity accessories—docking stations, display adapters, video and audio cables, network products, ergonomic furniture, and mounts—for IT professionals. The company maintains operations in 26 markets worldwide across five continents.

THE PROVIDER

John Galt Solutions provides supply chain planning software to help businesses optimize demand forecasting, inventory management, and production planning. The company serves a diverse range of industries, from manufacturing to retail and consumer goods.

As StarTech.com has grown, so has the size and complexity of its global supply chain. The company turned to the Atlas Planning Platform, a cloud-based solution from John Galt Solutions, to help drive the digital transformation of its supply chain, enabling the company to provide effective support to its expanding operations around the globe.

The company’s tagline, “Hard to Find Made Easy” sums up the mission of StarTech.com, Wenger says. He and his colleagues try to strategically procure and deploy products so clients can readily access them and, in turn, meet their customers’ needs.

Made for IT

Among the 3,500 to 4,000 stockkeeping units (SKUs) that StarTech.com offers are docking stations, display adapters, video and audio cables, ergonomic furniture, and mounts. “We are designed for the IT pro,” Wenger says. StarTech.com rigorously designs and tests its products to ensure they perform to the specifications most IT professionals require, he adds.

From its headquarters in London, Ontario, Canada, StarTech.com currently offers its products through 55 partner warehouses across 26 countries. Because the mix of items held at each warehouse can vary, the range of SKU combinations across its network of warehouses currently tops 70,000, says Mark McQuade, director of supply chain.

Small but Critical Products

In each market, StarTech strives to ensure it has the products customers need, in the quantities they need, when they’re needed. Its products often are a small but critical part of larger technology solutions.

For example, an IT manager at a mid-size company may be deploying a new server solution to thousands of employees. Most likely, they will focus on the larger equipment investments and spend less time thinking about docks or cables. “We always envision that person waking up in a cold sweat saying, ‘Oh no, I forgot to order cables,” McQuade says.

At this point, timely delivery of the cables is critical, to both the IT manager and StarTech.com, which may lose the sale if it can’t promise that delivery.

StarTech.com’s multi-faceted distribution approach makes its goal of ensuring its products are available when and where they’re needed more challenging.

The company operates out of four facilities, which are located in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Japan. It deploys primarily through a channel-based strategy, working with partners that have large footprints in different countries. The partners help facilitate StarTech.com’s 24-hour product availability to its end customers, the IT professionals.

Along with many small- and mid-sized businesses, customers also include Fortune 500 enterprises. “Our market intelligence tells us nearly 90% of the Fortune 500 have a StarTech.com product in use,” Wenger says.

Supply Chain Planning Evolves

John Galt’s Atlas Planning solution accounts for varying lead times to ensure StarTech.com’s connectivity accessory products reach customers quickly and accurately.

As StarTech.com grew and its supply chain became more complex, it needed a planning system that could keep pace. The solution had to be able to manage its go-to-market strategy of working with different partners in different countries, help it navigate geopolitical and other events, and enable it to remain ahead of advancing technology cycles.

“Our system had to evolve and be nimble enough to adapt to quickly changing market conditions,” McQuade says.

The Atlas solution from John Galt helps StarTech.com meet tight delivery timelines by identifying the optimal inventory level for each SKU, at each location. For example, when StarTech.com launched its Hong Kong warehouse, which has since moved to Tokyo, it was venturing into a new part of the world. Company leadership needed to manage and plan inventory through its channel deployment model, ensuring it was placing the right inventory in the right amounts in the areas where opportunity existed, and where it would be likely to grow.

At the same time, it had to factor in parameters such as manufacturing and transit lead times. Including manufacturing and transportation, the average lead time is about 120 days. While not the primary reason for StarTech.com’s vendor selection, it does influence it, Wenger says.

Predictive modeling enables StarTech.com to keep ahead of changes far enough in advance that management can take action. For instance, it helps management place inventory in areas where they’re confident the market is headed, and to identify how technology is likely to evolve.

The recent supply chain upheavals have made predictive modeling even more essential. Companies that don’t anticipate potential changes and how they might respond are already behind, Wenger says. In contrast, organizations that can look ahead and prepare often enjoy an advantage over their competitors, he adds.

Leveraging AI

John Galt—the name is drawn from Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged—provides an end-to-end supply chain planning solution. The Atlas Planning Platform leverages artificial intelligence (AI) planning capabilities and machine learning to help organizations dismantle business silos, boost visibility, and optimize demand planning, inventory management, and supply chain performance.

Artificial intelligence capabilities such as causal modeling link demand drivers to outcomes. Together, these can boost the speed and quality of decision-making.

Because the Atlas solution is a “low code to no code application,” implementations tend to move relatively quickly, says Matt Hoffman, vice president industry and product solutions at John Galt Solutions.

This approach prioritizes configuration over customization, streamlining implementations and offering scalability and flexibility, he says. The Atlas solution can continue to add value, even as organizations grow, or their mix of products or sales channels changes.

John Galt and StarTech.com initially connected in 2017, through a request-for-quotation process. StarTech.com had settled on Microsoft as its primary ERP platform. Management was looking for a planning solution and partner that was nimble enough to move and grow with StarTech.com, which was a smaller player in the Microsoft universe.

“We appreciated that John Galt was open to managing our unknowns at the beginning,” McQuade says.

In addition, John Galt embodies the same entrepreneurial drive found within StarTech.com. “Even though we’ve been in business for 40 years, there’s an entrepreneurial spirit about StarTech.com,” he adds.

The initial implementation took about two years. This included the time required to cleanse the data, establish the parameters the models would use, and test the solution. StarTech.com employees worked directly with the John Galt team on the implementation.

More recently, StarTech.com, working with the Atlas Planning Platform, moved its supply chain planning function to the cloud. Among other benefits, this boosted StarTech.com’s ability to act nimbly, McQuade says.

Making Informed Decisions

For example, StarTech.com can more efficiently conduct “what if” scenarios, such as assessing the impact of product lead times jumping by 10%, or the effect on purchases and cash flow if the company decides to double safety stock coverage from 28 to 56 days. This information allows for more informed decisions.

The Atlas Planning solution can account for differences in product lead times, which vary depending on where items are coming from and going to. Understanding the differences helps in distributing products so they can meet customers’ needs quickly and accurately.

Through Atlas’ advanced scenario planning and analysis capabilities, StarTech.com has gained increased visibility into its supply chain. It can better assess the impact of decisions across the company’s extended value chain.

Among other benefits, order fulfillment has improved. “Our order fulfillment is mid-90% every week, which is amazing,” McQuade says, The company has been successful in regularly keeping inventory levels where they need to be, he adds.

One goal of many companies moving to the cloud is to tie together strategic and tactical plans, Hoffman says. They then can better model their end-to-end supply chain to hit their business goals. For example, businesses may try to meet a goal of boosting market share by ensuring they have sufficient inventory on hand. For a distributor of technology products, historical data might indicate that they need to carry more USB chargers.

However, the growth actually is in the USBC market, Hoffman notes. AI-driven insights and composable workspaces allow all Atlas users, not just data scientists or planners, to understand the how and why of purchasing recommendations or changes in demand.

Going The Extra Mile

Throughout their partnership, John Galt has gone above and beyond, Wenger says. At all levels, StarTech.com is able to connect and collaborate with John Galt for information and answers, he adds.

StarTech.com plans to continue its partnership with John Galt, given the importance product availability plays as a differentiating factor in its market, Wenger says. John Galt continues to help StarTech.com position inventory so that it captures revenue without carrying excess stock.

In addition to the technical capabilities John Galt offers, StarTech.com gravitates to business partners who “truly want to be a partner,” Wenger says. “It’s not a one-way street. They accept feedback from us just as we accept their feedback.”

Optimizing Growth

The Challenges

StarTech.com needed to improve supply chain visibility and ensure continued, accurate product availability across its network of distribution sites, even as the company grew.

The Solution

Implement the Atlas Planning System from John Galt Solutions.

Results

The ability to more quickly and easily conduct what-if scenario planning. Order fulfillment now regularly hits about 95%.

Next Steps

Continue to partner with John Galt to ensure effective inventory positioning that enables StarTech.com to capture sales without holding excess products.

The post AI-Driven Planning Connects StarTech.com to Supply Chain Clarity appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

Jaime Hamm, Senior Vice President of Safety and Recruiting, Werner

While growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, the corporate headquarters of Werner Enterprises, Jaime Hamm, senior vice president of safety and recruiting, often saw the company’s trucks on the road. When a friend who worked at Werner had an opening, Hamm applied. The original opening had closed, but another had opened in the safety division.

Hamm wanted a career helping others or improving peoples’ lives. “Working in safety, we always try to limit accidents and prevent injuries,” she says. “Plus, there’s always something new happening. It’s a rewarding career.”

Currently, Hamm oversees about 250 associates in Werner’s safety, recruiting, terminal management and risk management teams. She shared her thoughts on leadership, the trucking industry, and the Green Bay Packers with Inbound Logistics.

IL: How do you instill an appreciation for safety?

We talk about safety from the moment new associates and professional drivers join the company. It’s at the top of our core values and everyone has to get on board, because it’s simply who we are. Derek Leathers, our chairman and CEO, always says, “Nothing we do is worth getting hurt or hurting others.”

We do all we can to loop safety into other processes, so nobody needs to go out of their way to keep up with training. For example, our drivers can complete their monthly safety training right from their tablets, when it’s convenient for them.

IL: How are you addressing the truck driver shortage?

We take only about 10% of professional driver applicants, because the other applicants’ driving records aren’t suitable or they don’t fit into Werner’s safety culture. It’s a struggle.

But we have great resources to help us target areas where we need drivers, and then to identify quality applicants and bring them into Werner. Because Werner owns Roadmaster Drivers School, we can vet students and find those who meet our safety culture and standards. We encourage them to apply at Werner once they successfully complete school and obtain their commercial driver’s license.

IL: How does your leadership in professional organizations help in your role at Werner?

As chair of the American Trucking Associations’ Safety Policy Committee, I work with others in the industry to improve safety. It’s a great platform that lets me work with my peers to improve our nation’s roadways. The beauty of safety is it’s not a secret sauce—people are willing to share their experiences, because the impacts are so widespread.

IL: What characteristics shape effective leadership?

Effective leadership requires adaptability and the ability to roll with change. This industry is constantly evolving, with new regulations, technology and more always on the horizon. We have to constantly look beyond the status quo, learn and look for the next best solution, and work to stay ahead of the game.

The ability to problem-solve is another component of effective leadership. There are always challenges ahead, and we need to make the best decisions we can and move on. Breaking big concepts into small wins is key, especially as technology evolves and systems change.

IL: What challenges keep you up at night?

Our litigation landscape and nuclear verdicts. The trucking industry has been the target of high-stakes lawsuits that require our entire team to remain diligent and ensure nothing is overlooked.

We constantly review and update our policies and procedures, and benchmark best practices with our peers. In addition, we go above and beyond testing for drugs and making sure drivers are well rested, healthy, operating safely and endorsed properly. Despite our efforts, we often face an uphill battle whenever a lawsuit is filed. It’s unfortunate and a major concern.

We’re also engaged in tort reform efforts throughout the country at the state level, and even on a federal level with the new administration.

IL: How do you help employees and drivers adapt to change?

Being transparent from the beginning and communicating the ‘why’ behind the change and how it will help make processes easier or faster can help alleviate concerns of associates and professional drivers.

We also make sure people have a voice in the change. When it comes to changes in equipment or technology affecting professional drivers, we have a group test the equipment and give us their feedback. Someone sitting behind a desk telling a professional driver, ‘This camera will help you’ is not as effective as a peer telling them.

IL: Any lessons learned throughout your career?

I’ve learned it’s okay to speak up and go against the grain. By asking questions, you can prompt others to have a higher discussion.

Several years ago, we were changing our ELD (electronic logging device) platform. We’d need to keep eight days of logs from the prior system when switching to the new one. We were trying to determine the best way to comply with this as we made the shift. Some team members suggested going down a paper path. I said, ‘It’s a computer system. Can’t we transmit from the old system to the new, without having to print eight days of logs for 9,000-plus drivers?’ I had to ask the question, even if people thought I was crazy. And it worked out.

IL: What qualities do you look for when hiring?

Especially with our leadership team, I don’t want to hire somebody who has the same skills or mindset I have. I want somebody who will challenge us and bring unique experiences to the team, ultimately making us more well-rounded.

IL: Who would you trade places with for a day?

My family comes from Wisconsin and I’m a big Green Bay Packers fan. I’d choose Brett Favre at the 1997 Super Bowl, when he holds up the Lombardi trophy. I’m thinking of the stress before the game, the 81-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Freeman, and how it felt as the game came together and they won.

Leading Anti-trafficking Efforts

At a conference about 10 years ago, Jaime Hamm saw a video on trafficking and found it very moving. She came back to Werner and asked how they could implement training to make sure their professional drivers know trafficking is a problem, and ensure that if they see something, they know how to report it.

Today, Werner drivers and even many office and maintenance associates complete human trafficking training and receive annual refresher training. Among other tools is a trafficking hotline drivers can use to report any red flags. This might be, for instance, a young person at a truck stop who’s dressed for warm weather when it’s winter.

Through its Pathways to Freedom initiative, Werner provides resources to customers, partner carriers, and vendors. “The company is getting more people involved and spreading the word that this modern-day slavery still exists, and that we are part of the solution,” Hamm says.

The post Driving Safety & Leadership: Jaime Hamm’s Road to Success appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

Devon Vogel is vice president, corporate strategy with Nelson-Jameson, Inc., a leader in food processing distribution.

RESPONSIBILITIES: Nurture strategic partnerships with key customers; lead internal initiatives to drive efficiency via technology, explore and identify new product and service markets, and enhance the company’s ecommerce solutions.

EXPERIENCE: Vice president, corporate strategy; vice president, customer solutions; director of customer solutions; inventory solutions manager; MRO product manager; assistant product manager; marketing associate, sales and marketing intern; all with Nelson-Jameson.

EDUCATION: B.S. Business Administration, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

I joined Nelson-Jameson as an intern in college, starting in marketing. I moved into product management and then branched out into different value-add service offerings for our customers.

Fifteen years later, I’ve learned from so many great people in our industry.

A motto I live by and that has allowed me to grow within my career is: ‘Say yes before you think you’re ready.’ Roughly 10 years ago, I had an opportunity to lead a new venture for Nelson-Jameson, the SupplyRITE™ Inventory Solutions.

Launching this required developing a program to offer inventory management on-site at our customers’ locations. We act as true strategic partners, while also using technology such as industrial vending machines and automated replenishment.

There were a lot of unknowns at the beginning. Yet, we were able to take this opportunity with one customer, and 10 years later, offer this service across the United States. We continue to listen to the voice of the customer and then evolve the solution with technology available to meet those needs.

About three years ago, another opportunity impacted my career. A known gap in our industry was plants struggling to complete necessary maintenance services. Often, equipment preventive maintenance can be one of the first functions that gets passed by when other urgent matters need attention.

To address this, I was able to absorb a sister company into the Nelson-Jameson brand, leverage our team’s technical knowledge, and bring a new professional maintenance offering to our customers. This service allows our customers to augment their maintenance teams with our expertly trained service techs. Seeing this service and team grow over the past two and a half years has been extremely rewarding.

Now, I continue to take the opportunity to listen to our customers. We have open conversations to understand what their goals and strategies are and, in turn, create pathways to meet their needs within our product and service offerings.

Product Management to Supply Chain

My career in supply chain happened organically. After college, I sought out established companies within central Wisconsin. It was more about finding the right culture fit versus seeking out a role in supply chain.

Over my career at Nelson-Jameson I worked on creating supplier relationships and understanding our customers. Whether they’re concerned about managing a potential tariff or the impact of a port closure, understanding their experiences and hurdles allows me to be their voice within our company.

Now, I’m a conduit from our key customers to product management, sales, and logistics teams so they can offer solutions to assist them.

I also lead our cross-functional digital transformation team. We’re embarking on a journey to adopt technology to improve our internal processes and be positioned to further scale. This means creating efficiencies and looking into artificial intelligence (AI) to understand how it will affect our product teams, our distribution centers, and the logistics function.

It’s an exciting time. We’re a 78-year-old family-owned company that has experienced year-over-year growth. As we continue to evolve and bring on new technology, it’s imperative we hold onto our customer-centric and education-first foundation. I believe, to my core, that our number-one goal would be to educate or help a customer before it would be to sell them something.

Devon Vogel Answers the Big Questions

1. How would you describe your job to a five-year-old?

I have six- and nine-year-old sons, so this is a perfect question. I say, ‘I help people make the foods you see in the grocery store.’

2. If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Teleporting. I would love to be able to go to any location in a very efficient manner and take my loved ones with me.

3. Who are your heroes?

My family. My work ethic and belief that I can do anything; that tenacious go-getter attitude has come from multiple people within my family. My loved ones have always continued to support me and I’m very grateful for that.

4. What movie, song, or book has had an impact on you?

Next Thing You Know, a country song by Jordan Davis. It talks about how quickly life transitions. I try to appreciate the different stages of my life and career and to be grateful I can experience them, while keeping in perspective what’s most important.

The post Say ‘Yes’ Before You’re Ready: Embracing Opportunity and Innovation appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

Pavlo Pikulin, CEO and Co-founder, Deus Robotics

The gaming industry and the logistics market may have more in common than first appears, according to Pavlo Pikulin, CEO and co-founder of Deus Robotics, and former head of a gaming company.

Pikulin’s aptitude for technology was evident early on. At 13, he was winning gaming competitions. He wrote several computer programs, including an automatic number-plate recognition system, which uses optical character recognition on images to read vehicle registration plates and create vehicle location data. “It was the first AI system I created,” Pikulin says.

With this accomplishment, he understood that he could teach a computer to understand and recognize its environment, and that it would be possible to create autonomous vehicles and robots that could handle manual tasks.

At 19, Pikulin dreamed of creating a robotics company, but lacked resources. In addition, the robotics industry was in its infancy and few understood the value robots could offer.

He launched WhaleApp, a gaming studio, to generate funding for his future robotics company. WhaleApp eventually attracted more than 60 million players and reached $50 million in annual revenue.

In 2019, Pikulin started Deus Robotics, which is incorporated in the United States, with offices in Ukraine, Pikulin’s home country, and the UK. Deus Robotics offers a unified AI platform designed to connect, manage, and optimize any type of robot from any provider used in warehouse automation. “Robotics technologies will change our lives very unexpectedly, and for most people, in a good way,” he says.

Pikulin shares his thoughts with Inbound Logistics.

IL: What challenges did you face when you launched Deus Robotics, and how did you tackle them?

We started by designing construction robots but quickly switched to logistics. In logistics, robots can make a huge difference across many processes immediately.

One challenge we faced was our lack of logistics expertise. Our founding team had profound expertise in AI, robotics, and hardware, but robotics and AI engineers usually don’t have expertise in logistics. To address this, we needed to work with a big logistics company to get a chance to unite our skills in AI and robotics with their skills in logistics.

We got this opportunity when Nova Post, Ukraine’s largest private delivery company, approached us about a project to automate their warehouse operations using robots. At the time, we only had construction robots, but Nova Post needed a logistics solution.

My team had just one month to build a robot from scratch. They pulled it off, because they’re incredible. Since then, we’ve also automated Nova Post’s order fulfillment operations and helped boost efficiency three-fold.

I walked away from this experience with three key lessons: First, always believe in yourself and your team, no matter how impossible something seems. Second, if you need to move fast, don’t aim for perfect. If it works, it’s good enough for now. Third, when you see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, do everything you can to grab it.

This experience reinforced a quote from Muhammad Ali that I live by: “Impossible is nothing.”

In another situation, a logistics company asked our team to automate a department that handles cargo of different sizes and weights that couldn’t be placed on a standard sorting conveyor line. Developing such a complex solution would usually take at least six months. We did it in 10 weeks.

We managed to move this fast thanks to two things. First, our team includes 11 PhD students. We’re experts in boosting warehouse efficiency with robots. Robotic automation is what we live and breathe.

And as a company of 36 people, we can make quick decisions and swiftly adapt to our client’s needs. A great deal of planning, hard work, and a bit of luck helped tremendously.

IL: How do you handle pushback?

When I launched my company and described my ideas and vision, some said they were impossible. Leaders need to believe in their goals and vision and not to surrender.

At the same time, we need to understand where we can fail, where we need to pay attention, and where the critical problem points are. If something fails, it’s a lesson, not a hard stop. It’s a lesson that I need to change something and go forward.

IL: How do you get people to look at an issue from a different perspective?

When I see that someone needs to look at an issue from a different side, I never say they’re doing something wrong. Instead, I ask: ‘If you look at this problem from this side, what do you think?’ Even if I know the answer, I want to see them acknowledge the need to look from another direction. Next time, they may try to look at it from a different angle on their own.

IL: What lessons that you learned earlier in your career remain relevant today?

My experience in the gaming industry has been valuable in many key areas. For example, we are creating virtual worlds in robotics simulation systems. It’s a game-changer in robotics because experimenting in a virtual environment offers a quicker and more efficient way to test ideas without waiting months for physical prototypes. My experience in the gaming industry was very handy in this case.

IL: What’s the new direction of your company?

At the start, we built our own robots. But creating many types of robots would take more time than I expected. I now understand that it’d be faster to focus on the software side, which is also our strong suit.

In 2024, we stopped manufacturing to focus on our AI platform, which can connect our robots and robots from other manufacturers and make them smarter. The dream is to automate everything, in logistics and elsewhere. A platform that helps robots communicate with businesses and each other becomes even more important.

You Need a Plan

The characteristics or attributes most important for leaders include believing in yourself, and good communication skills so you can share your vision with your team, says Pavlo Pikulin, CEO and co-founder of Deus Robotics.

Good leaders also need empathy because they manage people, not robots. “All people are different; they understand differently,” he says. “You need to try and understand their different perspectives, and how they feel about what you’re saying.

“Good leaders need to be strong mentally, because success passes,” Pikulin notes. “You’ll fail in one or another thing and then need to overcome it. When people on the team are upset when things don’t go well, but they see that you’re moving forward, their motivation increases.

“You also should have a plan,” he adds. “It can change, but you need a plan.”

The post ‘Impossible is Nothing’: Pavlo Pikulin Disrupts Logistics appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

THE CUSTOMER

Founded in Massachusetts in 1977, Specialty Bolt & Screw Inc. is a leading U.S. distributor in the fastener industry. It also works with key manufacturing partners across locations in Asia, Europe, and North and Central America to provide high-quality fasteners for several industries, including the outdoor recreational vehicle marketplace.

THE PROVIDER

RELEX Solutions’ unified platform provides one source of data and visibility to help retailers, wholesale companies, and consumer packaged goods manufacturers align and optimize demand, merchandise, supply chain, and operations planning across the end-to-end value chain.

To improve inventory management, SBS partnered with RELEX Solutions, which offers supply chain planning and other solutions. Its platform provides a single source of data and visibility to help companies align and optimize demand, merchandise, supply chain, and operations planning.

“We are a business-to-business distributor of fasteners and other small parts, such as screws, bolts, and rivets,” says Matthew Larsson, vice president of supply chain operations with the Agawam, Massachusetts-based company.

Adding Value With Logistics

SBS adds value by managing these SKUs for its clients. While the products tend to be small, clients typically order them in large volumes and require timely deliveries to ensure their operations aren’t interrupted.

“SBS handles sourcing, planning, and logistics,” Larsson says.

SBS delivers the products, often just-in-time, to its customers. In many cases, clients receive their orders within three hours of placing them. “For most of our customers, it’s critical that we don’t shut down their production lines by being late,” Larsson says.

With automotive customers, for instance, shutting down a production line would mean idling workers and potentially causing the supplier to miss orders. As a result, automotive customers may impose penalties when orders are late.

In addition, many of SBS’s customers maintain a low inventory of the parts that SBS supplies. While this helps to keep their working capital requirements low, it adds to the urgency of timely deliveries.

SBS had been relying on a homegrown, manual planning system that no longer sufficed. Among other shortcomings, planners had to search for information and complete manual calculations before they could determine what to order.

“Planners spent a lot of time on non-value-add activities, such as manually typing data into the ERP system,” Larsson recalls.

Not only did these tasks consume time, but because the system was difficult to use and failed to quickly capture changes in demand, SBS often held more inventory than was optimal, if customers lowered their estimates.

Some customers’ long-term forecasts start out high; they then lower their estimates as the dates grow closer. “In the past, we didn’t have a way to analyze and massage that forecast and make it more realistic, so we would buy to the higher forecast,” Larsson says.

Adding to the complexity, SBS obtains much of its inventory from Asia. This can mean a manufacturing lead time of three to five months, along with at least two months in transit. By ordering so far out, SBS could be overstocked on some products.

At the same time, an unexpected spike in demand could lead to shortages. Because the previous system wouldn’t always capture the change quickly, planners often were unable to adjust their orders. Instead, SBS spent money expediting shipments to ensure it met its commitments to customers.

“We needed more than a step change; we wanted a game changer,” Larsson says. He and his team researched and engaged in calls and demos with about 10 providers of demand and supply planning systems.

Relying on RELEX

By integrating advanced forecasting solutions with customer insights, SBS has dramatically improved demand prediction accuracy. This enables the company to optimize inventory strategies, ensuring it meets real market needs with precision.

RELEX Solutions—the name combines “retail” and “excellence”—quickly rose to the top. Among other key qualities, the RELEX platform has the ability to handle large numbers of inventory items and multiple locations.

The RELEX system can provide both item-level details, as well as aggregate reporting on, for instance, total inventory projections heading into the new year. The ability to customize the RELEX solution also appealed. “They could customize more or less anything we asked for when it was needed,” Larsson says.

The implementation of the RELEX platform kicked off in May 2022. SBS’s primary goals were to reduce inventory levels, boost forecast accuracy, and automate processes.

RELEX Solutions offers a supply chain and retail planning platform that leverages data to provide insight that can help supply chain organizations ensure product availability, reduce excess stock, and boost efficiency.

The system can create a digital twin, or virtual model, of a company’s physical supply chain, incorporating information on suppliers and other business partners, as well as manufacturing and distribution points. Companies can run advanced scenarios to gain visibility into their operations today, as well as into the future.

While users access these capabilities through a unified platform, they can also be delivered modularly, says Madhav Durbha, group vice president, consumer product goods and manufacturing. A company can activate each module as it makes sense for its operations.

Illuminating the Supply Chain

The unified platform is key, given a common challenge in boosting supply chain effectiveness: the silos that form within organizations. For example, despite everyone’s best intentions, the data associated with the logistics, manufacturing or procurement functions tends to remain separate, Durbha says.

RELEX can bring that information together, connecting the data points to illuminate the end-to-end supply chain. “Users suddenly have visibility into things that they did not know before,” Durbha says.

Reduce Inventory, Boost Accuracy

The implementation of the RELEX platform kicked off in May 2022. SBS’s primary goals were to reduce inventory levels, boost forecast accuracy, and automate processes.

Within SBS, two planners allocated about 40% of their time to the implementation, while an IT employee was dedicated about 80% to the project.

One critical activity was understanding the data needed by the planning system and then pulling it from the ERP system. That required a fair amount of work and an iterative approach to get it right.

For example, while orders from some countries in Asia ship once per week, orders from China are consolidated and typically ship once per month, Larsson says. SBS needed to include the varying shipment dates within the RELEX platform.

Similarly, supplier lead times also varied, often depending on the region of the world from which they were coming. Initially, SBS didn’t have these data points in anything other than disparate work documents, Larsson says. He and his team exported this data into the RELEX platform.

Given employees’ other responsibilities, and to avoid excessive risk, SBS launched the RELEX solution with just one customer. When that proved successful, it added two others, whose business models contain different types of complexity.

By December 2022, SBS’s first three customers, representing about 40% of the company’s business, were live. SBS has since moved about 75% of its customer base, by revenue, to the RELEX platform.

Many customers who aren’t yet on the system are smaller, and it may not be worth the work required to add them to the solution, Larsson says. As a result, it’s likely a small portion of SBS’s client base will remain outside the RELEX system.

At the outset, the RELEX team spent time on site with SBS, gathering requirements and gaining an understanding of the company’s business processes today and into the future, Madhav says. After that, much of the implementation work happened remotely. Implementation time for many projects similar to the SBS project takes about six months.

The RELEX solution supports SBS’s planning requirements across all its locations. About 60% of SBS’s customers use the RELEX platform to submit distribution, purchase, and production orders.

Since implementing the solution, SBS has significantly improved its supply chain management, Larsson says. Among other changes, it has been able to place planning operations closer to key markets, such as Mexico and Taiwan.

Integrating RELEX with SBS’s existing ERP systems facilitates the management of purchase, distribution, and production orders. “We freed up almost one day per week per planner from data entry,” Larsson says.

Now, if the RELEX platform provides a purchasing or distribution recommendation, the information feeds directly into the ERP system, and the planner no longer has to manually enter it. Planners can complete more frequent updates to SBS’s supply chain plans, boosting their ability to quickly respond to market changes.

Because the RELEX solution provides more timely notices of any shipment shortages, SBS has been able to cut its use of expedited shipping. “If you have one month to come up with an alternate plan, then it’s very doable,” Larsson says. “If you have to figure out an issue in two days, then it’s usually very expensive to fix it.”

Informed Decisions

By providing inventory and revenue projections by customer and location, RELEX helps SBS make informed budgeting and planning decisions. Through more accurate supply and demand planning, SBS has been able to cut inventory by about 29%.

“The RELEX solution has been a critical change for us from a working capital standpoint,” Larsson says.

Streamline Inventory, Free Up Capital

The Challenge

With more than 15,000 SKUs and a global supply chain, SBS faced challenges with excessive inventory and low forecast accuracy. The wholesaler’s previous inventory management and forecast solutions weren’t able to provide timely, efficient, and accurate inventory management and forecast functions. This often resulted in inventory levels that were higher than necessary, which  cut into working capital.

The Solution

Partner with RELEX Solutions and implement its unified supply chain and retail planning platform. The project kicked off with a clear set of goals: reduce inventory, improve forecast accuracy, automate processes, and ensure ease of use.

The Results

More informed supply and demand planning has helped cut inventory levels by about 29%, freeing working capital. Automation has reduced planners’ workload by about 15% each, enabling them to more quickly adjust to market changes.

The post Bolting Ahead: Specialty Bolt & Screw Tightens its Supply Chain appeared first on Inbound Logistics.

THE CUSTOMER

Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Blue Sky Distribution is a family-owned-and-operated distributor of grocery and tobacco products serving New Mexico and the Western United States.

THE PROVIDER

With headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and offices and partners around the world, Descartes Systems Group provides on-demand, software-as-a-service solutions focused on improving the productivity, security, and sustainability of logistics-intensive businesses.

By implementing NetSuite’s ERP, and then integrating several cloud-based solutions from Descartes Systems Group, Blue Sky was able to meet this automation goal. The solutions implemented include Descartes’ mobile barcode-based picking and packing system, parcel shipping automation, and delivery management with electronic proof of delivery.

“Blue Sky was in dire need of modernization,” recalls Robert Poole Jr., president and CEO of the company. “We were doing everything with paper and pen.”

Tossing Away the Paper

Among other challenges, Blue Sky’s old enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution wasn’t keeping up with the company’s growth. And because few employees trusted the ancient scan guns, they handwrote bin labels—which can stretch to 20 or more characters. Delivery drivers were routed using paper and Google Maps.

By leveraging Descartes’ solutions, Blue Sky was able to modernize these processes and boost order accuracy, as well as efficiency in fulfillment, shipping, and last-mile delivery operations.

For example, to automate and streamline its ecommerce fulfillment process, enabling it to more effectively respond to growing sales, Blue Sky implemented the Descartes OzLink™ Mobile Warehouse solution. This integrates with NetSuite’s ERP solution and increases fulfillment efficiency and accuracy, improves inventory control, and provides data that can guide forecasting, among other benefits.

For its wholesale business, in which Blue Sky makes deliveries with its own fleet of vehicles, Poole and his team turned to Descartes Route Planner On Demand. This solution streamlines vehicle routing and captures proof-of-delivery information.

Within its ecommerce business, Blue Sky implemented Descartes’ ShipRush solution, which provides real-time rate shopping, and can automate recurring work flows and tasks.

For example, companies can easily add their corporate logo or other branding elements to templates within ShipRush, promoting their brand throughout the shipping process, says Troy Graham, vice president of customer success with Descartes.

Starting With the ERP System

A starting point for Blue Sky’s operational transformation was its implementation of NetSuite’s ERP solution. Descartes was listed as a NetSuite partner for its picking application and routing software.

Hundreds of Descartes customers use the NetSuite platform, Graham says. In the approximately 15 years Descartes has worked with NetSuite, it has built a strong knowledge base and developed multiple pre-built connections to NetSuite’s ERP system.

Descartes’ ability to offer multiple applications within a single system appealed to Blue Sky. “A buffet of modules sounded much more attractive than implementing various solutions from different companies,” Poole notes. The strong reviews, along with the competence the Descartes team conveyed when the two companies met, also helped drive Blue Sky’s decision to implement Descartes solutions, he adds.

Working In Harmony

Leveraging mobile handheld scanners with Descartes OMW, Blue Sky automated and accelerated its multi-order picking and labeling processes to improve inventory control and boost efficiency and accuracy.

One goal of implementing these systems was to bring together the disparate operations at Blue Sky’s hub location and its three satellite warehouses. “One warehouse was doing the tango, one was doing salsa, and we were listening to classic rock,” Poole says. The new solution helps the locations operate as one.

As they implement different Descartes solutions, Poole says he and his team first focus on completing a proof-of-concept at Blue Sky’s main hub. Once they’re satisfied they have the module down, they turn on the satellite locations one at a time.

The implementation of NetSuite and Descartes technology solutions has enabled Blue Sky to modernize multiple functions. In particular, the improvement in the picking function has been “night and day,” Poole says.

The scanning software leads employees who are picking goods “like a trail of breadcrumbs through the warehouse,” Poole says. Workers can start at one end of the building and finish at the other, picking efficiently as they go. The ability to do Universal Product Code (UPC) scanning improves both order accuracy and the time required to fill an order.

Because the system populates the order queue within 15 minutes after orders are placed, Blue Sky now has real-time inventory information and can display both committed and available stock on its website. This provides customers with the timely information they need, Poole says.

Another change helps improve the usefulness of Blue Sky’s totes, which are used to temporarily store goods specific to an order. Descartes created a program in which each tote is labeled with a tote ID.

The ID acts like a license plate on a car, Graham says. The tote ID is connected to a container, just as a license plate is affixed to a car. The system is aware of the container, but the contents change from order to order, just as passengers in a car will change.

Once an order is assigned to a picker, they scan the Tote ID, which allows the system to make the connection between the ID and the order being picked. As the order is fulfilled, that tote is available to be reused for another order. “It has been a godsend for our team,” Poole says.

When orders are ready for transit, the Descartes routing system optimizes the delivery routes with a goal of minimizing costs while meeting service requirements. In doing so, it considers factors such as the time required to load or unload orders, the driver’s skill sets, and delivery time windows. Blue Sky can see how long each route will take, helping to reduce driver overtime. The solution saves time, so orders move to their destinations more quickly, Poole says.

Delivery notifications let customers know when a delivery is en route and when it’s complete, among other information. This helps eliminate text messages and emails.

Blue Sky employees can also provide proof-of-delivery using mobile devices and digital signature capture. This has been key, especially with retailers that demand documentation before offering payment.

Electronic Documentation

As important, the proof-of-delivery records attach to the transaction in NetSuite. If a question about a delivery arises, Blue Sky employees can find the documentation electronically, instead of digging through a paper filing cabinet. “That is huge for us,” Poole adds.

Blue Sky has implemented some customizations to its Descartes solutions and is considering more, Poole says. He plans to tackle one or two each year until the company completes its list.

This customization includes turning on some standard features that Blue Sky didn’t activate during the initial implementation. One example is the inventory module. This cut the time required to complete an inventory count by about two-thirds, while also boosting accuracy, Poole says.

Many companies see significant jumps in efficiency when they implement Descartes’ solutions, Graham says. For instance, the Descartes OzLink Mobile Warehouse product reduces the time workers spend trying to find items. It also cuts the time employees spend working to correct picking mistakes, which typically requires returning the wrong item to the warehouse shelf, picking the correct item, and then packing it with the other goods for that order.

In all, companies typically reduce the time required to fulfill orders by roughly 30%, Graham says. Accuracy generally increases to between 99.5% and 100%, which cuts both rework and the volume of returns.

The capability of ShipRush to automate the process of picking an optimal carrier and service for each delivery helps many companies save between 15% and 25%, Graham says. With fleet delivery operations, a 20% savings in miles driven and ultimately costs on the road is also typical.

Descartes’ Route Planner On Demand automates shipping calculations. For example, if a company has five trucks and 100 orders, the solution identifies the most effective and efficient delivery routes for each, taking into account any constraints, such as customers that accept deliveries only during certain hours.

Boosting Accuracy and Efficiency

Overall, by shifting to Descartes’ solutions, Blue Sky boosted order accuracy from about 80% to close to 100%, Poole says. By using mobile handheld scanners, Blue Sky’s fulfillment efficiency jumped by about 80%.

Through Descartes’ automated rate shopping capabilities, Blue Sky is able to offer more cost-effective shipping options and more efficient last-mile delivery operations. “From accuracy and efficiency to everything else, it has been a night and day difference,” Poole says.

Looking to the Cloud

The Challenge

To handle a growing customer base, Blue Sky needed to modernize multiple supply chain and logistics functions, including picking, packing, and routing.

The Solution

Blue Sky integrated several of Descartes’ cloud-based solutions with its NetSuite ERP, including mobile barcode-based picking and packing, parcel shipping automation, and delivery management with electronic proof-of-delivery.

The Results

Blue Sky gained several benefits, including near-total order accuracy, an 80% jump in fulfillment efficiency, real-time order tracking, optimized route creation, more efficient last-mile delivery operations, and mobile proof-of-delivery.

Next Steps

Among other potential changes, Blue Sky may customize the Descartes solution to allow for last in-first out loading of its delivery trucks.

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