Varsity Banishes Shipping Inefficiencies at White-Rodgers |
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White-Rodgers is a market leader in the design and production of temperature
regulation and gas flow/ignition controls for the HVAC and appliance industries.
The company's products are available through more than 5,500 distributors
including W.W. Grainger and Johnstone Supply, and over 200 retailers including
Sears, Ace Hardware, and Do-It-Best. In addition, White-Rodgers sells to
over 1,200 OEM customers such as Whirlpool, Trane, and A.O. Smith. To provide
prompt service to their numerous customers, White-Rodgers ships in excess
of 900 parcels and numerous LTL shipments a day from two distribution centers
and five manufacturing facilities.
In 2001, White-Rodgers moved their main St. Louis distribution center to
a new facility that had approximately half the total floor space as their
previous location. To fit into the smaller space, while keeping pace with
growing shipping volume and OEM customer requests, the company needed to
reengineer their entire shipping process. White-Rodgers determined that
it was necessary to move from two shipping lanes to one, eliminate redundant
carrier supplied hardware, integrate shipping data to their IBM iSeries-based
J.D. Edwards World system, and automate manual shipping processes.
To achieve these objectives, White-Rodgers selected ShipSoft and ShipPack
from Varsity Logistics. "Varsity's integration to J.D. Edwards World,
support for multiple carriers, automated label production, integrated track
and trace, and automatic bill of lading generation were exactly what we
needed," said Brian Hoefener, Manager of Applications Development for
White-Rodgers.
By automating shipping processes from order entry through delivery, White-Rodgers
eliminated several inefficiencies. "With our standalone shipping systems,
our clerks entered information twice, once in the carrier system and again
in J.D. Edwards World," reports Hoefener. "This was time consuming
and error-prone, taking over three minutes per package." By automating
shipping processes, it now takes White-Rodgers less than thirty seconds
to process each package, and they have cut their shipping staff expense
in half. "Before we implemented Varsity, on high volume shipping days,
even two people could not get everything shipped during one shift,"
reflects Hoefener. "Now, one shipping clerk handles all the volume,
and often has time to assist with other operations."
Varsity's multi-carrier shipping software provides White-Rodgers with a
single source for rates and transportation options. Since installing Varsity,
the company has eliminated six personal computers and six printers as well
as numerous scales and scanners. "We now have one streamlined shipping
line, and have reduced the total footprint of that line by over one hundred
square feet of valuable warehouse space," notes Hoefener.
In addition to eliminating inefficiencies, Varsity's seamless integration
into J.D. Edwards World improved customer service. White-Rodgers' customer
service agents no longer have to visit the UPS web site to track customer
parcels. With instant access to UPS' parcel status information from their
J.D. Edwards World screen, they can rapidly respond to customer inquires.
"We improved our responsiveness to our customers' ASN and UCC 128 requirements
as well," notes Hoefener. "We use TL Ashford and ShipPack for
label design and printing. Within just a few hours we can design a new label
format and update Varsity's control file." By providing compliant barcodes,
labels and packing lists, ShipPack mitigates costly violations and penalties.
Furthermore, it makes details about each shipment easily accessible, including
description, size, weight, and contents.
A ShipSoft and ShipPack customer since 2001, White-Rodgers credits Varsity
for their success in reengineering shipping processes. "Since installing
Varsity, we have eliminated our shipping bottleneck, saved over one hundred
square feet of shipping space, reduced our per parcel ship time from over
three minutes to under thirty seconds and are now able to provide a higher
level of service to meet our customers' demands," concludes Hoefener.
"Varsity does a wonderful job."
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