Archive for Warehouse Management Systems
I recently spoke with Jeff Kastning, Senior Manager of Logistics and Distribution at Brooks Sports, about the company’s recent implementation of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) labor management system (LMS). Brooks Sports, headquartered near Seattle, Washington, designs and markets high-performance men’s and women’s running shoes, apparel and accessories.
The company operates a 140,000 square foot distribution center (DC) that carries 12,000 SKUs and ships more than 6 million units… Continue reading
Labor Management at DSC Logistics
· CommentsI recently spoke with Jim Chamberlain, the Director of Engineering at DSC Logistics about their rollout of RedPrairie’s Labor Management System (LMS) solution.
Jim began his career at Kraft where he worked to develop labor standards. Based on that experience, he knew this was a big opportunity for DSC when he joined them. In 2005, DSC evaluated the major suppliers of LMS solutions. They selected RedPrairie’s solution… Continue reading
Voice Recognition Basics
· CommentsJoe Pajer, COO of Vocollect, and Tom Murray, Vice President of Product Management, recently briefed me on their idea that logistics is entering the “voice-enabled warehouse era.” According to a study they commissioned, voice solutions have only penetrated about 10-15 percent of the warehouses it is well suited for, a percentage that I can’t verify but find very plausible. In light of the low penetration, I realized that providing… Continue reading
Tom Kozenski of RedPrairie (an ARC client) sent me a video case study about a WMS implementation at Cummins Filtration that went very smoothly because of good project management: avoidance of customization, RedPrairie and Cummins folks that worked together seamlessly, and role-based training.
The benefits Cummins reported are what I would have expected for a paper-based facility moving to a WMS: better labor productivity… Continue reading
RedPrairie, an ARC client, held its annual user conference, RedShift 2010, in Orlando last week. It was the company’s largest user conference ever. The two biggest news items from the event were the CEO’s explanation for why RedPrairie was acquired earlier this year by New Mountain Group and RedPrairie’s acquisition of SmartTurn, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) multitenant WMS solution.
RedPrairie had been owned by Francisco Partners, a… Continue reading
The problem with taking a random walk at 3:00 AM is that you pay for it the next day, especially if you follow it with a 5-hour plane ride home.
- RedPrairie acquires leading on-demand warehouse management (WMS) provider, SmartTurn
- RedPrairie enhances Transportation Management with appointment sharing for inbound less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments
- RedPrairie enhances Warehouse Management solution with touch screen packing operations
I’m just back from Manhattan Associates’ Momentum 2010 User Conference. The theme this year was “Platform Thinking.” Manhattan, an ARC client, has been on a four to five year journey to bring its applications onto a common supply chain platform. Its warehouse management system (WMS) application was just added to the platform this year. The only applications not fully on the platform today are demand planning and inventory optimization… Continue reading
We were briefed a few months ago by BabbleWare, a new entrant to the Supply Chain Execution (SCE) market. BabbleWare sells warehouse management, manufacturing execution, and mobile execution applications. It offers both software-as-a-service (SaaS) and license pricing. BabbleWare’s solution integrates to paper-based systems (as well as systems that generate telnet/terminal emulation, XML transactions, and even Excel spreadsheets), pulls the data needed to create mobile scanning applications with the appropriate… Continue reading
