The Fulfillment Doctor….The Art of Data Conversion
By Curt BarryQ: We are in the process of planning our file conversion as we implement our new catalog management system. Our vendor is telling us that they normally don’t write a file conversion program for most files. What’s your recommendation?
A: Today’s comprehensive order management system performs integrated functionality for order entry, customer service, order processing, warehousing, marketing and merchandising.
There are literally hundreds of tables and files in these systems that have to be converted or built from scratch manually. These range from promotional tables, shipping tables to the more complex customer files, item masters and purchase order files.
For smaller businesses, the better approach is to minimize the automated file conversion. For larger companies (meaning tens of thousands of customers and products) it will be a blend of build manually and program file conversation.
Read the rest of the article on Data Conversion
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e-Commerce Platforms and Solutions
By Tocky Lawrence
Any company choosing an e-commerce platform is faced with a bewildering number of choices. Determining which of these solutions best fits your needs is no longer as simple as having your local Internet provider develop a Web page with navigation and some type of shopping-cart functionality.
E-commerce solutions have evolved to include core functionality for navigation, shopping cart, checkout, shipping and handling, and taxes and some level of integration to an order management system (OMS), an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, or a warehouse management system (WMS). Then there are the Web 2.0 options: rich media with audio and visual tools, customer product reviews, social networking, blogs. Newer technology also provides functionality for options such as mouse-over (move the mouse over an image and the description will display without the user’s having to click on the image), drag and drop (simply drag the item to the shopping cart without leaving the current page), and one-page checkout.
Given this array of possibilities, how do you determine the best e-commerce platform for your business? Here are a few guidelines:
Read the full platform and solutions article on our website
F. Curtis Barry & Co. – we are catalog consultants working with multichannel businesses to improve warehouse operations through the assessment and implementation of warehouse management systems and careful benchmarking of strategic metrics.
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Good Communication, Good Business
For U.S.-based multichannel businesses interested in attracting customers from overseas and maintaining the highest possible standards of customer service could do worse than host their Web site in languages other than English. Web site translation company MotionPoint helps clients do just that, offering human translation of Web pages so a business can run alternative-language pages for its non–English-speaking clients. After the initial launch, Once a Web page is translated, MotionPoint maintains and synchronizes it with the client’s main site. MotionPoint’s technology automatically detects content changes and adds them to a queue for translation within one business day.
MotionPoint offers translation services in over 40 languages (including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabic, Japanese, Italian). Clients include State Farm, Crutchfield, and Delta Airlines. We think this is a huge step towards being internationally correct, friendly to show proper etiquette and respect to other nations and cultures. Check it out at http://www.MotionPoint.com
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F. Curtis Barry & Co. – we are catalog consultants working with multichannel businesses to improve warehouse operations through the assessment and implementation of warehouse management systems and careful benchmarking of strategic metrics.
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10 Ways to Improve Efficiency and Reduce Costs in Your Warehouse Operations
Absolute productivity has declined in many companies.
Indeed, in conducting our benchmarking surveys (which we’ve done since 1996), we’ve discovered that many metrics, such as orders processed per full-time warehouse worker, remained flat, while dollars of sales processed per warehouse square foot have declined. In turn, labor rates have increased from an average of $5.50 to $10.50 per direct labor hour. To help you boost productivity at your catalog, I’ll focus on the warehouse audit process and the application of a few key warehouse success factors.
An Operations Audit
When trying to reduce costs and boost customer satisfaction and profits, first measure and analyze what’s currently being done. To determine if your warehouse operation in particular is as efficient as it can be, start with a warehouse operations audit. Such an audit takes a quantitative and qualitative look at your fulfillment operation’s productivity and accuracy, and does so in a systematic way.
A good operations audit enables you to measure warehouse productivity and other important metrics to identify patterns and trends. It also allows you to complete both internal and external comparisons. Once you gather the data and make comparisons, you’ll be able to draft an action plan for improvement.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a fail-safe, textbook approach to the operations audit. Many companies employ an independent resource to conduct the audit for an unbiased and independent perspective.
The audit should consist of a method for evaluating your own operation against a set of internal expectations, as well as external, industry-accepted, best practices and averages (outlined below). Remember, you can’t improve something if you don’t measure it.
Using a template – that is, a list of predetermined key evaluation points – for each area of the warehouse can aid in the audit’s organization. Focus on labor, facilities, systems and workflow procedures. By analyzing your operation against your existing expectations, you can develop a basis of measurement for future actions.
10 Critical Success Factors
The following is a list of key factors common to successful warehouse operations.
1. Use the cube.
Our studies show that occupancy (cost of space and utilities) ranges from 25 percent to 35 percent of the cost per order.
One of the single biggest culprits in optimization of your warehouse asset is not adequately using available cubic space. Your first look as you walk through the facility should be up.
Inefficient use of the available cube can translate into increased costs for additional warehouse space that you may not actually need. Typically, receiving, picking, packing and shipping generally use 40 percent to 50 percent of your space; product storage the remainder. Use racking, mezzanines, multilevel order-picking concepts and powered conveyor placement to increase your facility’s utilization.
In addition, look at the cube use in your picking slots and reserve locations to determine if a space reconfiguration can boost the amount of products stored.
2. Ensure that sufficient product is available when a picker needs it.
Use a combination of scheduled replenishment of the primary pick slot utilizing the min-max and demand-replenishment concepts. Most warehouse management systems and some catalog order management systems support these concepts. However, a shortcoming of many catalog management systems is that the picking-ticket process assumes that the pick face has been restocked and product is available. This frequently can hinder picker’s productivity.
3. Develop appropriate pick locations.
As much as 70 percent of a picker’s work hours may be spent walking. Consider product velocity (sales movement) and size (cube) when selecting the picking slots sizes and location. Many operations replenish forward picking too often. Set up a system in which you can store at least one week’s average unit movement in the pick slot and a “hot pick†area for extremely fast movers. Provide various slot sizes. Read more
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Crutchfield Chooses JunctionMCR
A major direct marketer of consumer electronics products, the Crutchfield Corporation, has decided to use Junction Solutions’ JunctionMCR solution to supply merchandising information to its Web applications, call center applications, and POS locations. Lincolnshire, IL-based Junction Solutions is a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner offering industry-specific functionality built on the latest standard technologies from Microsoft. JunctionMCR will integrate easily with Crutchfield’s existing Microsoft infrastructure. According to Crutchfield’s vice president of IT, Steve Weiskircher, JunctionMCR will help integrate the multichannel shopping experience for its customers. “We expect that the new merchandising solution will provide our merchants with better workflow automation, streamlining our product lifecycle management process,†Weiskircher says.
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Business Intelligence Firm Gets Investment Boost
On-demand business intelligence software OCO, Inc., has received $10 million in a Series C financing from investment funds managed by Highfields Capital Management LP, based in Boston, MA. The investment positions OCO to consolidate its first-to-market position in on-demand business intelligence.
OCO’s on-demand data integration and analysis software can dramatically reduce the time, cost, and risk associated with more traditional BI implementations. In just six weeks, OCO’s integrated solution takes any amount of data from any source and integrates, organizes and delivers it to desktops in reports and dashboards. OCO guarantees the results on a fixed-cost, fixed-time basis.
OCO has established a growing presence in the retail sector, where information systems may differ at store locations, corporate headquarters, and online merchandising operations. According to Dennis Hernreich, COO and CFO of Casual Male, “We chose OCO after considering other more traditional business intelligence solutions with significantly higher project costs and longer integration and deployment periods.†Casual Male Retail Group (CMRG), which has more than 500 stores in the United States, Canada, and England, credits OCO with helping to increase its profit margins by 3.5%.
For more information, visit www.oco-inc.com.
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New Sales VP at Sigma Micro
Multichannel retail solutions provider Sigma Micro LLC has announced that John Roth has joined the company as vice president, sales. Roth has over ten years of previous experience with software, retail, sales, and business development at companies such as Voxware Incorporated, Mincron Software, Manhattan Associates LLC, and EDS. Sigma Micro president Joe Swern says Roth’s “knowledge and understanding of retail customers, as well as his experience working in the warehouse and distribution software space make him the perfect addition to help us continue to expand the position of SigmaCommerce as the true fully integrated multi-channel solution for mid-market retailers.â€
Sigma Micro, a privately held company with headquarters in Indianapolis, IN, and development offices in India, provides .Net enterprise applications solutions to multichannel retailers. The company’s clients include retailers such as Sears, L’Oreal, Land’s End, Eastbay, and Drysdales. For more information contact Jeff Dahltorp (jsdahltorp@sigma-micro.com) or visit www.sigma-micro.com.
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Deal on Wheels
Tire Factory, the Portland, OR-based tire retail chain made up of independent dealers in the West, has decided on a new, integrated point-of-sale and ERP system. Tire Factory’s choice is JunctionISS from Junction Solutions, headquartered in Lincolnshire, IL. Junction ISS will be integrated to Microsoft Dynamics AX to provide a comprehensive enterprise resource planning system.
JunctionISS is a browser-based, touch (optional), GUI point-of-sale and back-office application designed to offer retailers a flexible, scaleable and standards-based solution using XML/XSLT Web technologies. Junction Solutions is a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner offering industry-specific functionality built on the latest standard technologies from Microsoft. Junction Solutions focuses 100% on solving business issues in the retail, food and beverage processing, and manufacturing and distribution industries.
The new system to be developed for Tire Factory will manage financial data, trade agreements, and warehouse and distribution activities for over 180 stores in 11 Western states.
For more information, visit www.junctionsolutions.com.
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Victoria’s Secret Opts for On-demand E-commerce Solutions
It’s a sure sign of changing times when a $1.3 billion direct-to-customer, multichannel business decides to switch to a software-as-a-service platform. Victoria’s Secret has announced that it intends to do just that by the end of 2007, using a platform developed by n2N Commerce, the e-commerce group spun off from Limited Brands (not coincidentally, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret).
Many on-demand solutions currently available are less than three years old, and they are catching on fast. Several years ago you needed a large capital outlay to redesign and maintain a Web site. Back when the application service provider model first appeared, the marketplace wasn’t quite ready for it in many ways. People still felt they could build an e-commerce solution cheaper and more efficiently in-house.
Companies find it harder to keep up with the rapid changes today, and it’s tougher to find and pay for people with the type of skill set to keep a system running. It’s a question of “Should I invest my money in purchasing a system, and then have to have to hire the staff and pay them as well to maintain the system, or is my time better spent focusing on core of business?†Lots of companies will happily pay someone else for that service.
This on-demand or software as a service solution means you no longer have to have that large capital outlay; there are lower up-front costs to get you into the model and up and running. Many of the on-demand models are based on a monthly or annual percent of revenue. No longer does a multichannel retailer have to build the e-commerce solution from scratch. Some of today’s on-demand solutions are customizable and are providing the type of functionality that traditionally had to be built from scratch or purchased and integrated into one’s own e-commerce solution.
The big news related to the n2N model is the scale involved. Prior to this, only small- to medium-sized companies have used on-demand solutions. N2N’s goal is to be the first cross-channel, on-demand, e-commerce software solution designed for large multichannel retailers. It has partnered with several e-commerce technology companies who will help develop applications: Allurent, Demandware (which is already used by Gardener’s Supply and Vermont Teddy Bear), and ChoiceStream.
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CommercialWare Product Announcements
Datavantage/CommercialWare Press Release 1-15-07
Wanted to make sure you saw that Datavantage/CommercialWare (a MICROS subsidiary) made several important product announcements today.
Datavantage/CommercialWare serves a combined customer base of over 450 brands and retailers and delivers complementary solutions to many common customers including Abercrombie & Fitch, J.Jill, Ritz Camera, Patagonia, Jos. A. Bank and Frederick’s of Hollywood.
CommercialWare Launches Java Powered Cross-channel Retail Solution
CWSerenade Unites the Power of Java Technology with the Depth and Breadth of CommercialWare Expertise
Datavantage Delivers New Features Across Industry-Leading Retail Suite
Store Systems, Analytics and CRM Solutions Continue to Help Retailers Deliver on the Complete Customer Experience
Datavantage/CommercialWare Retail Introduces Comprehensive Turnkey Retail Offering
Packaged Solution Delivers Pre-integrated Merchandising, Loss Prevention, POS and CRM Solution to Retailers