Clipper Distributing Company: A Warehouse Management Case Study
Animal Pharmaceutical Distributor Selects Accellos One Warehouse to Gain Efficiency, Productivity and Maintain High Rate of Growth
St. Joseph, Missouri (Vocus) May 20, 2009
Accellos (http://www. accellos. com/)], a leading provider of supply chain execution software solutions, has compiled a detailed case study of Clipper Distributing Company illustrating its history and offering a side-by-side comparison of its situation before and after implementing Accellos One Warehouse (http://www. accellos. com/warehouse) to manage its operations.
Following is an excerpt of the case study. The full article can be read in the attached document or at Accellos' blog, The Accelerator (http://blog. accellos. com/warehouse/clipper-distributing-company-a-warehouse-management-case-study/).
Summary
As the industrialization of the livestock industry continued to intensify price pressure on suppliers, a group of regional animal health product distributors joined in the mid-1980s to form Phoenix Pharmaceutical, Inc. in response. They reasoned that the buying power they could leverage as a group would generate better pricing from their own sources and enable them to sustain profitability. The group also sponsored and won federal legislation to allow development of generic products, not then available, and launch a company to manufacture them. Double-digit annual growth followed.
Fast forward, 15 years: The profitability squeeze imposed by the large animal trade endures and market opportunities are diminishing. Conversely, an area of the animal health field not losing but actually gaining ground is the pet or companion animal sector.
Again demonstrating their resiliency, members of the Phoenix group formed Clipper Distributing Company LLC to channel generic and branded products to distributors and wholesalers addressing the pet market.
Based in St. Joseph, Missouri, privately owned Clipper found what its principals were looking for. Like its predecessor, it experienced double-digit annual growth both in revenue and in units sold virtually since start-up.
The Clipper staff comprises 21 employees, 11 of whom are in the warehouse - a four-year-old, 37,000-square foot facility that is divided into three zones distinguished by their storage characteristics and picking requirements: pallet, case and carousel. The warehouse also has a refrigerated area, a flammable liquid storage room and a secure space for narcotics and other controlled substances. The company serves about 10 distributors with single and as many as 16 different shipping points. Deliveries are broken out at these points and forwarded to smaller outlets for direct sale to customers, most often veterinarians.
Until the installation of the Accellos One WMS (http://www. accellos. com/warehouse) software in January 2009, Clipper followed warehouse procedures developed at Phoenix Pharmaceutical, unchanged in 20 years with the exception that they were now executed though a Microsoft Dynamics ERP system.
In its search for a warehouse management system (http://www. accellos. com/warehouse)], compatibility with Microsoft Dynamics was a critical issue for Clipper. The company reviewed three alternatives before deciding on Accellos One Warehouse (http://www. accellos. com/warehouse). The Accellos solution was superior because it offered a fully featured solution and also had a proven track record as an integrated solution with Microsoft Dynamics.
Once implementation planning was completed, WMSI's Renne held a core team meeting to present an overview of the project and familiarize users with the WMS terminology and functionality as well as to review the full end-to-end process. Finally, a business solution document was created, detailing activities from the download of purchase orders through each step of the warehouse process. With this document as the handbook, the implementation team completed the install, trained the staff and the install was complete.
"To appreciate the impact Accellos One has had on Clipper's warehouse operations, you can eliminate about half of the paper-based activities," McKibben says.
Historically, a bottleneck could occur when a picker approached a bin to complete an order and found that there was insufficient product to fill it. The shipping process would halt for a manual letdown from overstock to replenish the bin so the pick could be completed and also allow enough product for the next order. Accellos One keeps a continuous analysis of each bin, so before a picker is routed any necessary letdowns have already occurred.
According to McKibben, the Accellos One version installed is basic but open, with additional opportunities that will come into play as Clipper's business continues to grow in volume and complexity. And despite its power and flexibility, the system is amazingly easy to learn, he says.
"We are looking towards adding a second shift and this will be quite important," he says. "Looking back we realize that under our old business model, there was a six-month learning curve. After installing the Accellos One software, we took a temporary worker 'off-the-street,' gave him a 10-minute orientation on using the scanning device, and by the end of the day he was picking more lines per hour than our most senior employees were doing last year."
At least half of the paper-based processes have been eliminated and those retained have been significantly improved.
"It was gratifying to be able to identify such significant results so quickly," McKibben says. "The entire process has exceeded expectations, from the excellent implementation team that Accellos recommended to the functionality of the system and the information we now derive for reporting purposes. Talking to Accellos One Warehouse users gave us the confidence to move forward and we now feel able to grow and expand without having to add more people and processes."
View the full case study in the attached document or by visiting http://blog. accellos. com/warehouse/clipper-distributing-company-a-warehouse-management-case-study/ (http://blog. accellos. com/warehouse/clipper-distributing-company-a-warehouse-management-case-study/).
About Accellos
Accellos, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a global provider of logistics, warehouse, third-party logistics, transportation and mobile fleet management software solutions. The company addresses the supply chain management and execution market with warehouse management systems for multiple environments, including transportation management software and in-field mobile resource management solutions. Accellos' powerful supply chain execution solutions are easy to customize and implement, providing customers with more innovation for less investment. For more information, email info (at) accellos (dot) com or visit http://www. accellos. com (http://www. accellos. com).
Media Contact:
Matthew Turner
VP Marketing, Accellos, Inc.
T: 719-433-7024
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