Waytek Celebrates Fifteen Years of Shipping Reliability
with Varsity's Shipping Software
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Waytek Inc. offers quality electrical wiring products, low prices and great customer service to their OEM and distribution customers in the industrial, electrical and wiring harness industries. Waytek maintains an inventory of over 5,000 products and offers same day shipping on most orders. The company ships more than 500 parcels a day via FedEx and UPS to destinations in North America and Europe.
For over fifteen years, Waytek has relied on iSeries-based shipping software from Varsity Logistics to automate carrier selection, rate shopping, label printing, manifesting and document production.
When Waytek purchased Varsity's shipping software in 1989, their shipping needs were relatively simple. One shipping station could handle the company's entire shipping volume, and all parcels were shipped through a single parcel carrier.
As Waytek's business grew, Varsity kept pace with new functionality that ensured the reliability of Waytek's shipping processes. Today, Varsity ShipSoft supports six shipping stations in the company's 69,000 square foot distribution center. "Our first solution from Varsity was a single shipping station with UPS," recalls Bob Lamoreaux, president, Waytek, Inc. "Since then, we have added Varsity's FedEx Ground Carrier Compliance Kit, ShipTalk, which allows us to see parcel status from any AS/400 station, and SpeedWeigh, which eliminates a manual 'get weight'."
In 1996 Waytek integrated ShipSoft with their new Enterprise Resource Management system from VAI. This gave Waytek seamless order processing from order entry through delivery.
Orders come into the company via phone, fax or through the Waytek's website and are entered into their VAI system. A pick ticket prints in the warehouse where bar coded items are picked and scanned to automatically transmit inventory information back to VAI. At the shipping station, the order is verified and the package is placed on the scale where its weight is automatically recorded. Within seconds, a complete shipping label prints. The label is manually applied to the box which is then sent down a conveyor belt to the loading dock. The entire process is seamless and straightforward.
"Sometimes we take the efficiency of our warehouse for granted," notes Lamoreaux. "When we give warehouse tours, visitors always remark on how simple our shipping process is."
One of the things Waytek has come to appreciate over the years is the consistent simplicity and reliability of Varsity's shipping software. "Although numerous new service types and shipping options have been introduced by the carriers, ShipSoft is still easy to use," comments Lamoreaux. "The layout and functionality are exactly what is required, and users do not need to know a lot of shipping terminology." In addition, because Varsity requires almost no maintenance, Waytek does not need a programmer on staff.
Waytek recently installed Varsity SpeedWeigh at six shipping stations. SpeedWeigh automatically retrieves package weight from the scale, eliminating the need to manually enter package weight. Lamoreaux notes that this addition has had several benefits. "The seconds saved by SpeedWeigh add up when you ship hundreds of packages a day. In addition, our shipping staff is more confident because they do not worry about entering the wrong weight, or putting the weight in the wrong field."
As one of Varsity's first users, Lamoreaux has years of experience with the annual carrier rate update, a process that he finds improves every year. "Our last rate update took a few hours and included both UPS and FedEx, recalls Lamoreaux. "It takes longer to backup and save files than to install the update."
Waytek's next goal is to gain even more reliability in their shipping process by replacing their UPS WorldShip international shipping system with Varsity's Export Document module. This switch will ensure all international documents are easily and accurately prepared and centralize shipping information for all shipments within their VAI system.
Reflecting on his long history with Varsity, Lamoreaux boils his experience down to one sentence. "We have relied on Varsity's shipping software for over fifteen years and in all that time I can't think of a day when we could not ship a package."
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