Supply Chain Brain

Warehouse Operations Get
Rapid Returns with Voice
In Selecting ERP System,
Get Everybody on Board

When rapid company growth swamped a ware-

house’s order system with paper, it was time to

automate, says Larry Landtiser, general manag-

er, Strategic Customer Operations, for ODW

Logistics. The hands-free environment that voice

technology enabled caused it to win out over RF.

Productivity, safety, accuracy and performance was the company’s mantra back in 2005, but it was in danger of becoming an empty slogan with growth taking off the way it did. That’s because ODW Logistics was still a manual operation and it was handling anywhere between 500 and 700 orders a day for its biggest customer. That was less than optimal by any standard, Landtiser says, and it certainly wasn’t good from a safety standpoint: employees wandered around the warehouse with paper in their hands.

Radio frequency and voice systems were assessed, and both had their pluses and minuses. Voice ultimately won out, he says, because of the hands-free environment that it creates. It combined both safety and productivity, Landtiser says.

The German vendor that ODW eventually went with, top-Vox, got the contract in large measure because it was assiduous in providing on-site demonstrations of how ODW could benefit with its system. It also helped that ODW was the first top-Vox customer in the U.S., and Landtiser knew they would be able to get all the support needed.

“They told us they would build the system around us instead of saying that they had a box that we had to fit in,” he says.

They partnered in July 2006 and went online within three months.

Benefits? There are 25 percent fewer safety incidents at the work site, accuracy in picking has improved to 99. 5 percent, and productivity has increased by 30 percent.

From choosing the right ERP system to imple-

menting it, all internal business units and all

external trading partners need to be involved,

says Vince Marchesani, managing partner of

DDP International.

First, recognize that implementing an enterprise resource planning system is a big project. Second, get the big guns in your company—the top managers—to back you.

Of course you need a team that understands the technology involved, Marchesani says, but that group’s hopes and plans won’t go far without the crucial backing of the top decision makers.

As for the project leaders themselves, he says, someone who understands the cross-functional needs of every business unit in the company is indispensable. And those units? Each one has an “owner” whose task is to reevaluate the current business flow of that department or group and come up with methods to enhance that flow. “You have to internalize the process,” he says. “You have to break down each business unit in order to understand and analyze its role and what it contributes.”

Even though these leaders are put in charge of each unit, every individual member in them is a shareholder whose buy-in is important to eventual success of the implementation project as well.

Timelines vary with the scope of the project and the goals sought, but three years is not an unusual figure, Marchesani says.

He favors all-inclusive suites because experience has shown that there are more value-adds where collaboration is the greatest. Nevertheless, he says, you have to respect and work with the wishes of the client.

Such projects are larger than the customer, however. All third-parties and suppliers are important and should be included in consultations because only then can you create the so-called “one version of the truth.”