Warehouse Logistics Optimization

United Distribution Services (UDS) is an established presence in the textile warehousing industry, known for innovation in freight and logistics services. Founded in 1995, the privately owned and operated 3PL got its start in the motor freight transportation sector. Consequently, UDS company culture is a standout among competitors as particularly in tune with manufacturer and retailer priorities. 


Supply Chain Planning and Execution

UDS invests significant resources, time, and energy into advising customers to make the right logistics decisions to ensure optimal efficiency and cost savings. The company’s leadership believes in harnessing the power of technology to customers’ advantage, making QSSI an ideal partner. Both our companies ultimately want to liberate clients from supply chain planning and execution, freeing up time and resources for them to focus on primary business functions: manufacturing, marketing, and sale of goods.

Fortune 500 manufacturers and retailers turn to UDS to solve logistics challenges, but so do designers wanting to move their well-structured start-ups to the next level. The company has collaborated for years with experts in warehouse material handling, engineering, and design. 

The goal is to leverage the latest technological development to raise customers to the next level of productivity and competitiveness. QSSI followed a similar strategy when initiating discussions about the effectiveness of UDS processes related to warehouse management, execution, and controls.

To effectively leverage technology, we started by asking UDS pointed questions about their current WMS. Could it provide detailed answers to inquiries, like “How is handling different (or more difficult) this time?” We learned that critical information, such as the precise cost and time investment to fulfill an order, was absent from decision-making protocol.

I had worked with other WMS software in the past and understood the potential for improved CRM. But, ROI for PowerHouse is exponential. With implementation, we went from 10 users to more than 100. You learn PowerHouse, you can now do whatever you want with it, which means my WMS and my company grow together.

Carl Ingargiola, President, UDS
Strategies for Rapid Response to New Customer Demand

For UDS operations to expand exponentially, their WMS needed to support the rapid onboarding of new customers. PowerHouse successfully connects various new revenue streams with a series of warehouse functions and services. UDS now had the ability to configure, reconfigure, and scale its operations (equipment, people, space) in response to evolving customer demands—without expensive modifications to the WMS application.

PowerHouse also supports multiple business models simultaneously—another key strategy employed by UDS to meet increased customer demand. In response to the shift in recent years to Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) shipping, UDS has engineered fulfillment processes and procedures to position its partners to meet their online consumer’s immediate expectations. 

Communication is the key to converting process changes into business opportunities. PowerHouse is a systems integrator for complementary supply chain management software and for all leading e-commerce, marketplace, and carrier software, including shopping carts and customer portals. Therefore, we worked effectively with UDS to handle volume fluctuations flawlessly and at a moment’s notice. Increased flexibility also translated into reduced overhead and the ability to specify a fixed cost per unit.

Tactics Employed for a High-Volume Operation

UDS is an exceptionally high-volume operation, as demonstrated by the 200+ packing stations that keep business booming. The QSSI team partnered with UDS to identify and develop optimal solutions for a full range of customer requirements, from shipping DTC via an e-com site to drop shipping via a carrier. Orders are mapped specific to their type, e.g., flagged as e-com.

UDS is giving its customers the ability to compete with the largest e-com outlets out there. Orders are processed instantly, leaving the warehouse within 12 hours from when the transaction was first initiated.

Ed Troianello, President, QSSI

Through constant reporting, PowerHouse delivers high-level order management and oversight. Quality, actionabledata is made available for informed decision-making. According to the UDS website, automated reporting, among many factors, contributes to the company’s “impeccable fill rates and turns.”

  • Item velocity analysis
  • Pick flow setup
  • Inventory count
  • Location accuracy

Clear order visibility is another important strategy for delivering within a high-volume operation. UDS keeps its customers informed through many PowerHouse capabilities, including transmitting EDI transactions, pushing order status, and tracking information. UDS can also send a branded, yet personalized, email alert, generated by Powerhouse and containing all order information, tracking numbers, and customer service contact information.

Consolidated Dedicated Returns Processing

UDS prioritizes returns processing. The company has dedicated facilities to handle vendors and retailers’ consolidated return services. PowerHouse is an integral part of this process, as well as key to capturing revenue through additional efficiencies and improved customer satisfaction.

A multi-pronged approach ensures the timely reconciliation of return charge backs and consumer credits. UDS leverages as much PowerHouse data as possible to monitor returns volume, eliminate manual data entry, apply credits, and quickly refurbish and transfer goods back to appropriate fulfillment centers. 

PowerHouse captures and monitors data on multiple levels.

  • Return authorization validation
  • Carton level ASN EDI 180
  • Quality inspection
  • Refurbishing to first quality condition
  • Damage and disposal maintenance
  • Trend analysis and advanced BI reporting
A Reliable Partner in Retail Distribution

“Accuracy, accountability, and speed” are the crucial factors in the retail distribution pick & pack environment, according to UDS. The company maintains a 99.98% financial and statistical inventory, achieved through “stringent receiving variance approval procedures, obsessive cycle counting, and utilization of UPC and RFID barcode scanning” (UDS website, 2021). 

All these disciplined procedures are sustained through PowerHouse.

United Distribution Services

Cranbury, NJ

Distribution Center
  • 2,000,000 square feet
Customers
  •  Apparel
  • Home goods
  • Manufacturers
  • Retailers
Warehouse Environment
  • Garment-on-Hanger and flat pick & pack fulfillment
  • Just-in-time retail replenishment
  • Direct-To-Consumer shipping
  • Same-day e-commerce fulfillment
  • Full case distribution
  • Retail deconsol/consolidation
  • Domestic transportation
  • Overseas pre-packs
Solutions in the Design
  • Systematic wave modeling
  • Bulk pick line zones
  • Scale counting
  • Pick-to-light
  • Flow racking
  • Automated customized compliance labeling
  • Automated rate shopping
  • Reserve to active replenishment location

Automation-Aware Order Releasing

Origami Owl’s business model is difficult to categorize. Forbes magazine once characterized the privately owned, multi-level marketing custom jewelry company as the 14-year old’s $250M “big idea” (Oct. 2013). Currently, 45,000+ independent sales consultants (“designers”) purchase materials and tools from Origami Owl for product direct sales to customers, primarily via in-house sales parties. What is clear is that this level of thinking outside the [jewelry] box requires that technology evolve and adapt with similar innovation and agility.


Product Customization and Personalization

PowerHouse supplied the logic to make the floor automation in Origami Owl’s warehouses work for the company’s changing requirements, regardless of original design intent. 

Technology needed to evolve to keep pace with the company keeping ahead of developing market conditions, including trends toward product customization and personalization. All aspects of operations needed to work as a single unit to achieve the desired enhancements in materials handling. The “choreography of movement throughout the warehouse,” as described by QSSI’s Chief Product Manager, Rob King, required a turnkey solution.

We considered the entire order journey, more than 1.5 miles of cabling, with the objective of quadrupling production capacity.

A Turnkey Solution for Logistics Automation

PowerHouse enhances the production of automated material handling technologies and concentrates the power of robotics. In effect, it provides the logic for releasing orders using an efficient, business savvy protocol that is specific to the user. 

Origami Owl needed individualized solutions for when, where, and how to sequence various fulfillment scenarios and trigger restocking items. By gaining oversight and control over all moving parts in the warehouse, we were able to affect overall productivity and deliver greater efficiencies. Automation-aware order releasing (as well as automation-aware pick pod selection, path planning, and labor scheduling) helps ensure a productive, cohesive work pace across all work zones.

PowerHouse safeguards that no element within Origami Owl’s warehouse is working in isolation.

For example, scan a box and the system will assess which worker and what route he or she should take, depending on where the remainder of the order is located. Also, no worries about flooding the pick-to-light system, because automation awareness means that the right number of picks will be released into the system in the first place.

ORIGAMI OWL

Chandler, AZ

Distribution Center
  • 100,000 square feet
Customers
  • Custom jewelry design 
  • Apparel and textile
  • Direct sales
Warehouse Environment
  • Complicated sourcing requests
  • Split orders
  • Low minimum order requirements 
  • Combined order and customer processing
  • Just-in-time delivery
Solutions in the Design
  • Embedded TMS
  • Real-time order visibility
  • Scale counting and scan & pack
  • Automated customized compliance labeling
  • Automated rate shopping
Global Supply Chain
  • US
  • Puerto Rico
  • Canada

It’s almost always about managing the release of work. So, you begin by learning how a company does pack & ship—because everyone does it differently, in response to specific programs and compliance requirements.

Russ Schumacher, QSSI’s VP of Applications
Simplified Integration Strategies for Complex Order Management

Origami Owl averages approximately $70 per order. However, multiple highly individualized orders are typically shipped to the same location, at the same time, for the company’s sales events. This reality is a fulfillment challenge experienced by many companies in the creative industries, and the solution is gaining full operational oversight and control.

Who: Origami Owl
What: WMS implementation focused on operational solutions
Where: new state-of-the-art warehouse
When: 3 months leading up to holiday season
Why: optimize $4M already invested in floor automation
Wow: up 45,000 orders avg. per day, down 70% pickers

User-friendly, simplified integration strategies for Origami Owl involved solutions for specific equipment and controllers on industrial networks. Increased oversight and control over automated equipment gave our client distinct advantages.

  • WMS + print & apply labeling—triggers next fulfillment step
  • WMS + handheld devices—enables geofencing and positioning data
  • WMS  + predictive analytics—enhances routing, picking, slotting, etc., processes
Connection between Visibility and Capacity

During a critical period of growth, as Origami Owl ramped up for the holiday season with a brand-new facility, we helped with enhanced interface management. PowerHouse delivered full ERP function integration and directly/indirectly supported enterprise application software. We also supported seamless communication with our client’s EDI, OMS, supply chain management software, and the numerous e-commerce, marketplace, carrier, and customer portals employed by the company.

For Origami Owl, a direct correlation now exists between real-time location visibility (product, assets, people) and a real-time view of warehouse space and storage capacity. PowerHouse’s location capabilities include constant insight into an order’s journey through the entire facility. Floor managers have access to useful data that can be immediately acted upon.

  • Dwell times/congestion analysis
  • Equipment overload mitigation
  • Optimization of underutilized resources
  • Asset tracking 
  • Cross-docking strategies
WMS as the Brain that Drives the Muscle

We built a WMS for Origami Owl that excels with evolving warehouse planning and execution processes. We understood from the start that operations would be routinely impacted by changes originating from variable markets and a global supply chain. Small-scale, transient disruptors, such as influencer driven trends and seasonality, would also be the norm. Operations would need to scale up to meet sales goals.

In response, PowerHouse is made more intelligent with real-time quality data about automation system use and material flow. It is the brain that can adjust to changing conditions—even on an hour-by-hour basis, grouping work for increased efficiency at certain times but also automatically increasing capacity for hot orders or imminent carrier pick-ups.

PowerHouse is effectively thinking for the many systems that comprise the warehouse. For an e-commerce enterprise facing complex order fulfillment requirements, like Origami Owl, this depth of knowledge is a huge competitive advantage.

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

WMS Rapid Deployment and Easy Adaptation

3PLs need a WMS to be a comprehensive technology toolset, delivering continuity from factory to customer.

PowerHouse connects your supply chain, effectively marrying your warehouse to your business. The system supports the most critical aspects of 3PL service: fast and easy adaptation to fluctuating client requirements, productive interactions with supply chain partners, and the optimization of resources and delivery processes.


Fast Deployment

To be competitive, 3PLs need to quickly onboard new customers. An effective WMS will optimize revenue streams for all services provided to your customers. Even when data is lacking for direct benchmarking, the system supports change and growth in productive, cost-effective ways without compromising quality.

  1. User-configurable process flows
  2. Functional benchmarking to test performance
  3. Real-time enterprise-wide visibility 
Straightforward Configuration

The capacity to configure, reconfigure, and scale in response to evolving customer demands is a business advantage. With PowerHouse, this can be accomplished without expensive modifications. 

  1. Scalable agile framework
  2. Unhindered data access
  3. Smart task interleaving
Interface Management

Communication is the key to converting process changes into business opportunities. PowerHouse is a systems integrator for complementary supply chain management software and for all leading e-commerce, marketplace, and carrier software, including shopping carts and customer portals. 

Furthermore, remote access ensures oversight and control offsite, as well as onsite, using any number of devices. A “fully loaded” WMS places actionable information and reporting tools at your fingertips.

Bottom Line

PowerHouse empowers the 3PL with the ability to easily configure business processes to meet customer-specific requirements.

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
Large-scale Efficiencies
  • shopping carts
  • systems integration (ASNs, EDI, B2B + B2C, ERP, accounting)
  • scalable to any size enterprise
  • flexible user-configurable business rules for optimal control
Industry-centric Functions
  • e-commerce
  • apparel
  • food
  • pharmaceuticals
  • automotive
  • publishing
  • manufacturing
  • retail
System Features
  • multi-owner/warehouse enabled 
  • profile-based billing (activity, storage, periodic, accessorial)
  • system-directed value add services 
  • kit building with multi-level BOM
  • automated MHE control
  • quality inspection and holds 
  • flexible reporting tools
  • integrated TMS
  • returns processing 
  • next generation access portal

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

Warehouse Operations & Reverse Logistics

Strengthen the chain of custody across your supply chain by achieving complete visibility over your reverse logistics and delivery processes.

PowerHouse syncs your entire supply chain, from inventory management to logistics operations to transportation management systems. Only this level of integration can ensure a seamless, cost-effective process when introducing reverse logistics. Our WMS has the capacity to push products immediately back to market.


Plan for Unplanned Reverse Logistics

A robust WMS system provides the necessary infrastructure to anticipate and quickly react to on-demand movements of products. Significantly, it’s time lost to reprocessing that represents the greatest hit to your bottom line. PowerHouse provides process controls with full visibility, from any point in the supply chain, for the fastest resale possible.

  1. Know the order number—for both logistics provider and retailer.
  2. Identify the reason for a return.
  3. Apply quality and condition codes.
  4. Create and process Return Materials Authorizations (RMA).
  5. Combine demand returns with planned deliveries.
Support Supply Chain Agility

Your chain of supply has the potential to respond quickly and effectively to evolving customer requirements, providing multiple paths for the disposition of goods.

  1. Returns to the manufacturer
  2. Refurbishment
  3. Available and promise inventories
  4. Disposal

PowerHouse process controls move goods back to available inventory or as needed. The comprehensive system allows items to be easily inducted and assigned conditions that will enable system-directed moves to process the inventory efficiently.

Manage the Customer Experience

Understand that your customer is as invested in the returns experience as he or she is in a seamless delivery process.

  1. Provide full visibility over the returns process.
  2. Address operational inefficiencies before your customer is affected.
  3. Automate initial steps, such as return requests, scheduling, barcodes.

PowerHouse captures additional revenues that would have been lost by a less supportive WMS.

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
Who’s Impacted
  • distributors
  • retailers
  • logistics providers
  • supply chain managers
  • manufacturers
Key Features
  • high-volume returns processing
  • linked returns process and delivery order
  • reason for a return captured
  • discrete inventory tracking through grading
  • quality standards inspection
Integration Touch Points
  • notifications (RMA)
  • EDI and ASN
  • available/as needed inventory
  • store inventory
Specialty Functions
  • apparel product variants
  • publishing logistics
  • spare parts management
  • recycling/green initiatives
  • hazmat handling directions
  • proof of disposal
  • shelf life information