Resources > APICS Magazine > May 2004 > Spotlight on Food and Beverage > Accurate Tracking

Accurate Tracking

Saving time and increasing efficiency with radio frequency, bar codes, and more

National Importers brings its customers fine foods from around the world. The company needed a system that would accurately record and track products being picked and shipped, as well as help deliver quality products in a timely manner.

Three companies—National Importers, Inc.; National Importers West Ltd.; and National Importers Canada Ltd. (collectively referred to hereafter as National Importers)—have been importing food products from virtually everywhere in the world for more than half a century. Together with Grantham Foods, these four entities compose the Food Group for a diverse Canadian conglomerate. In this competitive, high-volume, low-margin business, the Food Group must consistently raise its standards by improving accuracy and delivering product as rapidly as possible.

To meet this challenge, Summa Tech, the information technology arm of the conglomerate, was charged with moving the Food Group from a manual pick and ship system to an automated system. With Epicor Software Corporation's Avanté solution already in use throughout the conglomerate, it was natural for Summa Tech to work with Epicor to add bar code real-time shipping (BRS) to the total solution for the Food Group-based companies.

Before implementing Avanté BRS, National Importers was using a manual pick and ship system to meet its shipping needs. Due to the manual nature of the system and the high level of detail required, the company had to keep adding staff in both warehouses to keep up with shipment entries. With more than 500 stockkeeping units, more than 3,500 customers, and 70,000 invoice line details per month, Summa Tech and Food Group management knew it was time for a change.

"After meeting with the Epicor team, we realized that we would greatly benefit from the efficiencies of Avanté BRS," says Ken Askew, general manager, Summa Tech. "Our high volume, together with the diversity of products in the Food Group—especially National Importers—made this a critical decision, one which would enable us to better serve our customers with more efficient control of our inventory."

Retooling
As an existing Avanté customer, the BRS module was easily integrated with the rest of National Importer's software. The Epicor team led the BRS hardware and software implementation, which included a radio frequency system and bar code related technology.

Epicor works with Intermec Corporation, which produces data collection equipment for manufacturers, to deliver the BRS solution. The National Importers implementation included the Intermec Controller to maintain real-time Avanté sessions designed to fit on the handheld unit's small text screen. This capability enables handheld sessions to stay alive when the unit is off, making restart easy for the warehouse user.

To initiate accurate lot control, National Importer's system included turning on location control for the warehouse and establishing location codes. The staff created location master records and added item and warehouse coding to each item in the system. Bar coding was also added to each pallet in the warehouse.

"Now that BRS is up and running, pickers can look at their handheld units to view their pick order, then scan the lot and item number from the bar code located on the pallet. All very accurately and rapidly," says Rob Hayman, Food Group controller. "And we are better utilizing resources. Our accounting staff is freed up from the manual entry of shipments to do other things. And warehouse managers can do faster, more accurate warehouse inventory checks with the handhelds."

Before and after
Managing different lots of food is critical in the food distribution business. Lots that have been in the warehouse the longest need to be picked and shipped before newly arrived product. When using a manual system, it is difficult to track and control lot shipment to meet this requirement. In fact, before Avanté BRS, pickers didn't necessarily record or pick from the actual lot number. Therefore, the books would often show lot control as a negative number.

The company's lot control accuracy has improved greatly with BRS. Now, by using handheld devices, National Importers' warehouse pickers automatically record the lot and location using the scanning bar codes.

"With better lot control, we can run the business more efficiently and make more timely decisions," Hayman declares. "For example, if there is an industry recall, we now have the data to retrieve the stock, wherever it is. It's also important for us to know what lots are in the warehouse, because it enables us to do the 'best before' dating so we can pull stock and, if necessary, put it on promotion."

National Importers has realized a number of time-saving benefits since implementing Avanté BRS, but the greatest has been in the shipment-to-stage phase. With Avanté BRS, the step to go from shipment entry to stage-to-ship entry is now just two keystrokes.

"When you do the math on the time savings, it's pretty amazing," Askew says. "The average shipment entry was five minutes per order prior to BRS, and now, with BRS, the average stage-to-ship entry is one minute. That's a gain of four minutes per order. National Importers West has an average of 3,750 orders per month. At four minutes per order, that's a savings of 250 hours a month."

Looking ahead
The next step for Summa Tech is to expand Avanté BRS into the fourth Food Group company (Grantham Foods) and work with Epicor on customizations.

"We've built a very successful partnership with Epicor and are looking forward to working with them on some BRS customizations to meet our business needs," Askew says. "We'd like to have the system automatically generate invoices, removing another data entry step. We are also working to customize the stage-to-ship process to eliminate the printed packing slip. With our growing volume, the time and cost savings of these customizations should be substantial."

Summa Tech is also looking at the Avanté Advanced Packing and Tracking (APT) module. This new Avanté module would enable the Food Group to use cartons as shippable entities for those customers who prefer this tracking method."The flexibility to grow and enhance our picking process as the market dictates is critical to our continuing success," Hayman concludes. "With Avanté BRS, we have the tools to rapidly respond to the changing product tracking needs of our suppliers and customers."