Inventory Management Software Implementation Excels with 99.88% Shipping Accuracy and 64% Reduction in Inventory Control Labor Hours

Today's warehouse managers that make correct decisions when selecting a supply chain management system stand to be revered as heroes not just for improvements in warehouse operations, but for improving an organization's bottom line.

In the recent case of Four Seasons Produce Company - one of the largest produce distributors in America - the warehouse management team scored big with a 60% reduction in mis-picks and shorted product, a 64% reduction in inventory control labor hours, and 99.88% shipping accuracy by implementing a new inventory management software system.

“We now record only 12 errors in 10,000 cases picked, compared to 40 before, and overall productivity has been greatly enhanced,” says Nelson Longenecker, Vice President of Organizational Development for Four Seasons. “We have a world-class work environment that gives us a definite competitive advantage.”

Originally spread out among four warehouse facilities, its distributed warehouse operation used manual processes. “With so many manual transactions taking place, we were always one step behind the product,” says Longenecker. “It wasn’t uncommon to lose track of whole pallets, which affected service levels and ate into profits.”

When it came time to consolidate operations into a new 262,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, Longenecker and his warehouse team went through an exhaustive selection process to equip it with a new inventory management software system.

The selection team identified the salient difference between inventory software choices when they started visiting several customer-reference sites. One inventory management software vendor whose customers all used the same software release, running the same source code, stood out. So did the fact that customers could configure their systems in different environments without vendor assistance, and who could also install the system in subsequent sites independently. In the end, Four Seasons selected the Priya TM warehouse management system by Motek, a Beverly Hills, California-based warehouse management software developer.

Motek's Priya inventory management software is the only fully featured, Microsoft Windows(R)-based, warehouse management software currently available that can support more than 300 concurrent mobile users. Its open architecture allows straightforward interface with a number of ERP systems, transportation management systems, and other supply chain management applications.

“Priya gave us all the features we required, along with an implementation path that made sense in our world," says Longenecker. "Furthermore, we could deploy it on our existing Windows-based infrastructure. It was the only real Microsoft warehouse solution we found giving us vendor independence and a comprehensive implementation approach we believed in.”

Longenecker's conclusions proved correct, as the new supply chain management software quickly overcame several challenges such as construction delays at the new facility.

“As the Priya inventory software recognized our inventory levels in all buildings, it expedited the move,” says Longenecker. “Since produce is perishable, we couldn’t stop. We configured, tested and 'went live' without any onsite vendor help. We filled all our orders and made the transition during a 36-hour shut down over a holiday weekend.”

The use of the Priya inventory management software, has raised case selection productivity at Four Seasons from 155 to 230 cases per hour, achieved a 22% reduction in lost sales due to errors, and case inventory accuracy has been boosted to 99.8%.

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Motek
Contact: Amanda Solari
Email : amandas@motek.com
113 San Vincente 3rd Floor
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Phone: 323 653-4333
Fax: 323 653-5763
www.motek.com