WCS Solution By QC Software Drives Immediate Benefits

ral Pet, a national pet food distributor, was ready toautomate its manual warehouse operations. With pet food and supply sales soaring,the company decided to meet its logistical challenges by installing an automatedpicking solution."What we had been using was inefficient, pretty much pushing a cart down anaisle--no scanners, no pick-to-light, no pick-to-voice," says Jeff May, operationsmanager for Central Pet, which is a business unit of Walnut Creek, CA-based CentralGarden and Pet Co. "The WCS is more focused on the activities within the warehouserelating to order fulfillment and shipping. Determining the best place to performeach distinct level of activity will avoid any conflict," says Jerry List, vicepresident of QC Software Inc., (www.qcsoftware.com) a warehouse control systemsprovider in Cincinnati. There are numerous immediate benefits, including:Flexibility in equipment purchase decisions: The ability to tie together equipmentfrom multiple suppliers allows firms like Central Pet to purchase the best equipmentfor the facility instead of choosing all the equipment from a single supplier.Real-time operation: Because the WCS interacts with the MHE controllers inreal-time, it instantly reacts to status information from the material handlingequipment, making adjustments to maintain an efficient product flow.System redundancy: Since the WCS is always located at the warehouse, it can maintainwarehouse operations in the event that the connection between the warehouse and thecorporate WMS/ERP system goes down.Eliminates islands of automation: The WCS provides the middleware to connect afirm's WMS/ERP to the material handling equipment via a single interface. Thisprovides a single point of monitoring and control for the entire warehouse.Dynamic pick allocation: The WCS can a make a "last minute" determination based onthe current activity and operational status. This dynamic pick allocation helpsbalance the load on the system and increases productivity.Cartonization: By analyzing the make-up of each order, the WCS selects the smallestpossible size container, reducing shipping and dunnage costs. Quality control: Customers are highly frustrated when the wrong product was shipped.Distributors incur the additional cost of the return, as well as the wrath of thecustomer. A WCS can help eliminate this problem in some industries by providingreal-time order verification ensuring that the carton contents are correct for thatorder using an in-line scale. The WCS knows the expected weight of each order basedon the items picked. Boxes outside of a user-defined tolerance can be diverted formanual quality control inspection. Reduce theft and fraud: The WCS can help manage not only the product in thewarehouse to reduce theft, but also help uncover and eliminate fraud. Tracking: The real-time aspect of the WCS provides order status so that a companycan track a product anytime, anywhere in the system.Shipping: With a WCS, companies can dynamically change the ship method at the timeof shipping, ensuring the most cost-effective method is used. System diagnostics and problem resolution: The WCS can consolidate operationalstatistics and diagnostics across the entire warehouse and provide improvedvisibility of equipment status and order tracking. QC Software, Inc.www.qcsoftware.comJerry ListJerryList@qcsoftware.com (513) 469-1424

Source: Express-Press-Release.com

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