The Case for a Fully Integrated TMS

We designed PowerHouse for collaboration with shippers, carriers, and third-party programs.

Having a fully integrated transportation management system as part of your warehousing strategy ensures that the various moving components will play well together. Ultimately, you’ll benefit from optimal parcel shipping conditions and the most efficient route management and delivery coordination with retailers.


Supply Chain Synchronization

Work entirely within the PowerHouse environment or incorporate your current TMS. Both options will result in a highly connected supply chain and a full suite of transportation solutions. However, an embedded TMS offers clear advantages for a complex omni-channel order fulfillment environment.

  1. The supply chain execution (SCE) module leverages both WMS and TMS functions.
  2. You can access real-time decision support systems, including dynamic routing and dynamic rating and routing.
  3. Supply chain visibility is available within your enterprise and throughout the extended supply chain.
Enhanced Fulfillment Capabilities

Smart fulfillment is about being flexible but also prepared for fluctuating freight flows. You’ll want collective management capabilities for inter-modal, parcel, less-than-truckload (LTL), air shipments, and more. When traffic fluctuations become the norm so should your capacity for rapid response and adaptation.

  1. Review detailed analytics.
  2. Orchestrate an intelligent transportation plan.
  3. Make sourcing decisions backed by advanced data collection.
Last Mile Logistics

An embedded TMS results in the most accurate distribution network assessments and, therefore, the fastest delivery possible. Warehouse and transportation management capabilities operate within a single execution system, enabling access to TMS planning and tasking functionality at any time during the order fulfillment process. The bottom line: your customers have a seamless shopping experience.

Final Word

The case for a fully integrated TMS will become even more evident as your transportation operations transform into a profit center and competitive advantage. As your customer expectations evolve, so should your TMS grow with your business.

PowerHouse extends your control beyond the warehouse.

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
WMS+TMS Capabilities
  • customer-specific routing guides
  • TL, LTL, and parcel shipping
  • rate shopping tables
  • truck loading
  • shipment consolidation
  • compliance documentation
Large-scale Efficiencies
  • fast order fulfillment
  • precision control
  • error prevention
  • enterprise-wide business transparency
  • scalability without modification
System Features
  • certified domestic and international small parcel rating 
  • TL and LTL BOL generation 
  • generic carrier rating, labeling, and electronic manifest 
  • unlimited locations and carrier account numbers
  • automated carrier specific time-in-transit routing 
  • parcel tracking and delivery monitoring 
  • process to hold/future shipping 
  • anywhere-to-anywhere rating 
  • multiple package processing and re-cartonization
  • rate shopping by lowest rate and time-in-transit

Warehousing for a Global Supply Chain

Most companies need business insights, not more data, to expand their operations. To combine information with analysis is to find meaning and a greater understanding of your current situation, with the goal of moving forward. A full stack WMS toolset is a start, but the ability to leverage data from multiple systems (TMS, OMS, LMS, etc.) is a competitive advantage. In the case of our client Standard Fiber, PowerHouse delivered on a number of levels: executive access, customer access, and insight access into their business. With these insights, they extended and then built new revenue channels.


Standard Fiber’s Expansion into New Markets

One of the largest producers of bedding textiles in the world is also a unique model for product development, manufacturing, and distribution. Standard Fiber is the first company in its industry to combine US and UK based innovation with manufacturing capabilities in Asia. Our client offers customers a seamless supply chain experience with access to advanced textile technologies and a premier design-development team, plus the significant cost savings of working with manufacturers in Pakistan, India, and China.

QSSI aligned our client’s warehousing with their ambitious expansion into new lucrative business partnerships.

Early Adaptation in Standard Fiber’s Warehouse

WMS easy scalability and rapid deployment helped our client harness a competitive advantage, specifically, in the bundling of bedding with other products, including mail order mattresses. Achieving this new bundling capability was instrumental in the company’s expansion.

Chris Thornton, EDI/Operations Specialist at Standard Fiber, described the difficult conditions that marked the early days of breaking into a new market. Meeting retailers’ immediate requirements for increased EDI capacity meant implementing the new WMS while dealing with accelerated schedules, high volumes, and complex global logistics.

Thornton credited QSSI with keeping both software and hardware on track and error-free, “QSSI’s people brought a ‘yes, we can do that’ attitude and the timeline for accomplishing the job.”

Smooth Implementation and Rapid Deployment

QSSI helps deliver a seamless customer experience as Standard Fiber scales up to meet increased demand.

Multiple new channels (and new clients) have since been added, but the first “bedding bundle” order was a short 9-week undertaking requiring an overhaul of Standard Fiber’s operations. Rather than significantly increasing the number of workers on the floor to accommodate the additional orders, PowerHouse made existing labor more efficient. We made the floor fully RF enabled and implemented a new process for reducing time and touches.

Cartons that don’t require repackaging (or a pack station) prior to shipping, e.g., bundled mattresses and bedding, can now be picked, labeled, and shipped under one continuous procedure. Carrier compliant labels are printed from a mobile device when the carton is scanned. The worker simply “slaps” on the label and drops the carton at the conveyor to the truck. The fact that the carrier system is fully integrated with the TMS adds another level of seamless execution.

Ultimately, PowerHouse enabled the company to transition to a drop-ship-to-consumer mode while increasing orders by as much as 900% per day.

Custom End-to-End Solutions and EDI Integration

Standard Fiber’s customers expect and receive reliable ecommerce fulfillment support for finished products. Because reputation is built on reliability, it’s important to make continuous improvements in the WMS process and product. You want your WMS to evolve with new business objectives. Chris Thornton, EDI/Operations Specialist at Standard Fiber, put it this way, “When opportunity knocks, you need the backend architecture to take advantage.” He explained, “You want to grow and scale quickly without worrying about system capacity.”

For Standard Fiber, individualized end-to-end solutions have resulted from ongoing collaborative consultation with the QSSI team. For example, we helped the company gain more from their EDI and achieve 100% compliance with their retailers. PowerHouse managed the orders fast enough to handle immense upticks in volume—at times, swelling from 300 orders per week to more than 3,000 per day.

We also integrated PowerHouse with Standard Fiber’s EDI VAN, providing the necessary data for their cloud-based supply chain management software (SPS) to feed their EDI requirements back to customers. PowerHouse leverages the data from multiple systems to “know when to send orders to fulfillment,” said Thornton.

Accessing Information for What Comes Next

For Standard Fiber, we delivered a solution that takes the entire customer journey into account when managing data. Furthermore, this solution is also extensible. Access to a continuous, reliable source of data—such as KPIs at both the facility and enterprise levels—empowers our client to keep making adjustments and improvements in response to an evolving business environment. Wherever Standard Fiber takes their business, we’ll be there to support them.

STANDARD FIBER

Las Vegas, NV

HQ & Distribution Centers
  • 4 corporate campuses
  • QC lab (textile testing)
  • 140+ Global Suppliers
Customers
  • manufacturers
  • distributors
  • retailers
Stock
  • 560,000+ catalogue items
  • 2,500+ SKUs
Supply Chain
  • China
  • India
  • Pakistan
  • Vietnam
  • Brazil
  • Cambodia
Warehouse Environment
  • Textiles warehousing
  • Omnichannel supply chains
  • Complicated sourcing requests
  • Multiple distribution centers
  • Individualized labeling
  • Drop-ship to consumer
  • Just-in-time delivery
Solutions in the Design
  • Fully integrated platform
  • Full visibility
  • Picking in real-time
  • Scale counting and scan & pack
  • Automated customized
    compliance labeling
  • Automated rate shopping