Streamlining the Shipping Process with Logistics Software
An industrial packaging manufacturer that has more than doubled in revenue in the last decade, EAM-Mosca was facing challenges in its core shipping process. EAM-Mosca was processing in excess of 500 shipments a week to over 12,000 destinations using the major parcel carriers and about a half dozen LTL carriers. They were experiencing issues related to the shipping process and managing carrier costs. These problems were rooted in the fact that their existing shipping solution was a mixture of disparate systems provided by the carriers.
The company found itself maintaining and updating many different interfaces and spending excess time to train new employees on multiple shipping systems, etc. The challenge was to find and deploy a solution that would provide the same level of service and flexibility EAM-Mosca was accustomed to, while minimizing IT expense.
The software and systems from each individual carrier worked well as standalone systems. However, the integration or lack thereof, created barriers and was clearly not handling the basic requirements of the core shipping process. The cost of supporting the carrier provided systems and custom written interfaces were increasing yearly; the company was processing its international shipments manually, and training of new employees became tedious and cumbersome.
The ability to rate the carriers based on least cost, an absolute must to achieving cost reduction, was nonexistent in their existing system. From a usability standpoint, the carrier provided software systems that were different from one system to the next, and the entire solution from functionality to usability had significant system limitations. In summary, the impact of a decentralized system was affecting the order to ship process, and the shipping system was both a production bottleneck and cost adder. “We were spending resources, time and money managing multiple shipping systems and maintaining the integration to our VAI S2K order entry system,” notes EAM-Mosca’s materials manager, Bruce Mowery.
EAM-Mosca identified and defined their specific requirements and began their search for a fully integrated multi-carrier shipping solution that would enable them to manage all of the carriers, both parcel and freight, through one centralized system, and take advantage of their existing hardware platform. They had discussions with their primary vendors, IBM and VAI as they wanted to continue to run on the IBM i platform and interface seamlessly with their back end ordering system, VAI’s S2K. Mowery explained, “The two main points of criteria weighed by the team at EAM-Mosca were feature/function and platform, but we also looked very closely at things like usability, support, and of course the price.
From a functionality standpoint, Varsity Logistics software addressed our requirements, ranked very high in ease of use, and was integrated tightly to our VAI S2K ERP software. In discussions with the customer references we spoke to, the support team received high marks, and the Varsity Logistics solution was competitively priced.” As EAM-Mosca continues to grow, the Varsity Solution has the scalability and flexibility to grow with the organization. With the need to process hundreds of orders a day while enhancing the customer experience, the Varsity solution proved to be the Transportation Management System (TMS) solution EAM-Mosca required.
The result of centralization is the ability to rate shop carriers based not on the published rates, but rather their contracted rates, choosing the carrier based on actual cost data.
Mowery adds, “The implementation was straightforward and the Varsity integration required little additional development; after some testing and training the results were immediate and positive in many areas of the business. The ability to process orders, track shipments and get product out quickly at the lowest possible cost is just a few areas where the business benefited from the new system.”
With the successful implementation under its belt, the organization looks ahead to face the rapid technology changes in today’s business environment.
For companies to survive and be successful in today’s volatile economy and continually provide the highest quality customer experience, it must consistently evolve and adapt to new technologies. In that spirit, EAM Mosca continues to grow with the help of the technology provided by Varsity.
Founded in 1982, EAM-Mosca Corporation provides high-performance strapping system solutions to a variety of industries including food, graphic arts, mailing, fulfillment, logistics, corrugated, wood, and other industrial or consumer goods. EAM-Mosca combines innovative equipment with strapping materials manufactured to maximize machine performance and customer support programs that help our customers meet their performance and productivity goals.
To learn more about any of EAM-Mosca’s other productivity enhancing strapping systems, please call us at 800-456-3420, or email us at info@eammosca.com. You can also connect with us on YouTube (www.youtube.com/EAMMoscaCorp), Twitter (www.twitter.com/EAMMoscaCorp) and LinkedIn and FaceBook via the links above.
Content above excerpted from an article by Joe Dysart in InBound Logistics
https://s3.amazonaws.com/tpco-inbound-logistics-www/digital/issues/il_digital_december2014.pdf