In the early 2000s, the Strategic Sourcing team at the University of Pittsburgh faced significant challenges with their homegrown, spreadsheet-based spend categorization tool. The system was inefficient, time-consuming, and heavily reliant on suppliers responding to information requests. This made it difficult to accurately categorize supplier spend and manage data effectively. The team struggled with accessing and reporting on their metrics, which hindered their ability to make informed decisions and achieve their goals. The need for a more dynamic, efficient, and user-friendly solution became increasingly apparent as the team sought to improve their productivity and reporting efficiency.

Jurriaan Lombaers, SVP & CPO at Air France-KLM, was tasked with leading the firm's procurement journey to drive greater consistency across the business. One of the main challenges he faced was defining what procurement excellence and consistency meant for the firm. Lombaers emphasized the importance of storytelling in procurement and the need for the team to have data readily available. He aimed for the team to spend 80% of their time creating value for the business and only 20% on gathering data.

The challenge – and the opportunity – was achieving, for the very first time, complete visibility of more than 10,000 suppliers including related contracts from massive amounts of data stored in disparate internal sources.

The procurement function of a multinational support-services organization was struggling to identify opportunities for supplier rationalization and sourcing optimization. Supplier expenditure represented 50% of its turnover, but the organization faced challenges in managing data from 30 different source systems. The client prioritized long-term value over short-term savings, making it essential to find a sustainable and efficient solution.

A global mining organization was dissatisfied with the results from a management consultant firm they had engaged for a taxonomy and categorization exercise. They needed a more effective solution to support their procurement team with data categorization. The existing taxonomy was not aligned with their business needs and reporting objectives, leading to inefficiencies in their procurement processes. The organization sought a new framework that could better categorize their data and provide actionable insights to improve their working capital strategy and payment processes.

De La Rue faced significant challenges in managing its global supply chain, which included over 2,000 supplier relationships across six countries. The supplier data was held locally, making it difficult to gather information and report on supplier spend. This lack of automated data visibility hindered the procurement team's efficiency in supporting the business and managing both cost and risk. The company needed a solution to centralize and automate supplier data management to improve governance, compliance, and overall procurement efficiency.

A leading global CPG company faced challenges in their European sector due to on-time delivery complications for shipments that crossed multiple land and sea borders. The company needed to plan heavily around the estimated time of arrival (ETA) of raw goods at their production facilities, which were limited on space. Receiving goods just-in-time for production was essential to minimize stock levels and avoid delays in production schedules. Therefore, they required a solution that would provide greater visibility and accurate ETAs to ensure timely receipt of materials.

A large Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) company needed end-to-end supply chain visibility with an emphasis on timeliness. Their current visibility was limited to the day of delivery and lacked precise and accurate time of arrivals, causing numerous operational inefficiencies. The company had previously invested in traditional solutions, such as warehouse and transportation management systems, and spent millions of dollars working with several consulting and technology providers who didn’t deliver the results or solutions they needed. Ultimately, they were left relying on drivers to provide estimated time of arrivals (ETA) and employees to manually update statuses.

One of the world’s leading biotechnology companies, focusing on developing therapies for multiple sclerosis, hemophilia, and other autoimmune disorders, needed true end-to-end supply chain visibility. This pharmaceutical company ships their therapies around the world, often through high-risk areas to reach their patients. With individual shipments worth 20-30 million dollars, supply chain performance and visibility are of utmost importance. Despite this, they did not know the current routes taken between origin and destination sites and, consequently, they were unaware of specific areas of risk or loss. As a result, this company needed better insight into the actual performance of their supply chain to optimize route performance and identify areas of risk for securing their goods from theft.

Pierre’s Ice Cream aimed to elevate their already high service levels and improve operational efficiency without overhauling their existing infrastructure. The company faced challenges with incomplete orders due to skipped empty locations and the high cost of rectifying pick errors. Additionally, the cold environment of their distribution center, with temperatures at -20° Fahrenheit, required workers to wear protective clothing, making traditional paper pick lists cumbersome and inefficient.

Efficient and accurate item selection is crucial in healthcare. Mission Health's paper-based picking process was inefficient and error-prone, leading to open work orders at the end of shifts. Hiring more staff was not an option, so they sought technology to replace outdated processes. A handheld scanning system was tried but found cumbersome, necessitating a hands-free solution.

Simon & Schuster faced significant challenges in their distribution operations, particularly in the order picking process. The company needed to ensure that products were moved through the building and out the door accurately and quickly to meet high standards of excellence. The existing system required improvements to handle the high volume of orders, especially during peak periods, and to maintain accuracy. Additionally, the company aimed to eliminate non-value-added processes and reduce reliance on temporary workers, which posed management challenges and potential accuracy issues.

Previously, Elsevier's Linn, Missouri location was fulfilling orders using RF scanning, which had several drawbacks. The RF guns sometimes had difficulties reading labels printed on cardboard, leading to inefficiencies and errors. Workers were slowed down by the cumbersome RF units, which they had to juggle along with the products during order picking. This not only risked damaging the RF units but also made the process less efficient. Additionally, there was very little insight into productivity rates and picking errors, making it difficult for management to track and improve operations.

Operating distribution out of a 36,000 sq. ft. conventional warehouse, Hollywood Feed filled orders for 30-50 lbs. bags of pet food using a paper-based picking process. With a small workforce devoted to product selection, the existing picking process did not allow workers to reach maximum levels of productivity or efficiency and left room for inaccuracies in product selection. Knowing their warehouse processes and operations were not optimized to support fast-paced growth - and to accommodate an impending increase in warehouse size to 77,000 sq. ft - Hollywood Feed turned to voice technology to increase productivity, efficiency, and accuracy. “We began investigating voice because it offered a hands-free solution that would best meet our needs. However, we quickly found that few suppliers wanted to talk to us unless we were spending $250,000 or more,” said McGhee.

HarperCollins, a leading trade publisher, needed to enhance its supply chain operations to maintain high service levels and support the distribution of millions of books weekly. The company faced challenges with batch-picking errors and inefficiencies in their manual, paper-based picking process. These issues required significant time to resolve, impacting overall productivity and resource utilization. To address these challenges, HarperCollins sought a solution that would reduce errors, improve throughput, and optimize staff deployment.

Burlington Drug Company faced significant challenges in maintaining high levels of accuracy and productivity in their order picking process. With a commitment to next-day delivery, the time spent correcting errors such as shorts and mispicks was too valuable to be wasted. Additionally, the company aimed to improve its green operating profile by reducing paper usage. The need for a more efficient, accurate, and eco-friendly solution was paramount to meet customer expectations and operational goals.

Prior to implementing Voxware, Belron's Laddaw distribution center faced significant challenges with their order selection process. Order selectors had to use RF scanners, which required frequent holstering and unholstering, slowing down the process. The correct sequence of picking windscreens was crucial due to their varying curvatures, and any mistake in the order could lead to improper packing and increased rework. The distribution center needed to ensure rapid and accurate delivery to support Belron's commitment to customer satisfaction, as they distribute to 18 local centers in the UK and many independent glass fitters. The existing manual process for determining the best pick sequence was inefficient and prone to errors, necessitating a more streamlined and automated solution.

Hi-Spec Lenses, a UK-based distributor of eyewear products, faced operational inefficiencies due to outdated manual systems in their warehouse. The company needed to modernize their processes to improve accuracy and efficiency. Their old paper-based picking system had an accuracy rate of 99.5%, necessitating a team of auditors to ensure no mis-picked packages were dispatched. Hi-Spec needed to decide between an RF scanning system and voice technology to enhance their picking process.

The PRSG team implemented a voice-directed picking workflow with their old voice provider in 2010. After a few years, the PRSG team learned one of the harsh truths about technology vendors. “It’s not enough to find a great technology,” said Carlos Falcon, Distribution Center Director, PRSG. “It’s just as important to find a great partner. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have a great partnership with our first voice vendor so we decided to begin searching for a new one.” Falcon and the PRSG team wanted to drive further productivity improvements by implementing a replenishment workflow, but they were unable to get the project started with their previous vendor. Additionally, the hardware they used was approaching the end of its useful life and their contract with their former voice provider required PRSG to shoulder the costly burden of replacing the outdated devices. In 2015, the PRSG team started looking for a way to mitigate the cost of the hardware upgrade and began vetting new voice providers.

Broadline food distribution is a highly competitive business where high quality and consistent customer service are paramount. Performance Food Group (PFG) continually reviews its operations to find ways to enhance service levels. Despite already strong customer satisfaction, PFG saw an opportunity to further improve by implementing voice software. The goal was to increase overall productivity and accuracy, improve customer service levels, and manage quality control costs.

As the population of a market increases, so does the demand for agriculture products. In North America, Tessenderlo has enjoyed steady organic growth since its inception. However, growth does not come without its challenges. With constraints in their network becoming more evident, Tessenderlo recognized transportation asset availability, accessibility of transport modes, production capacity utilization, and operating costs needed to improve. Presented with this daunting task, Tessenderlo quickly realized it was in their best interest to hone in on these challenges by creating a practice dedicated to Supply Chain Analytics.

Over the past decade, the specialty healthcare distributor had undergone substantial growth by expanding existing product lines and acquiring complementary businesses. The current single point manufacturing and distribution footprint had become stretched as the organization was supporting over two-thousand end customer locations across North America. This further manifested in their primary East Coast distribution center which suffered from significant capacity constraints. Also, on the West Coast, the organization felt pressures of both increased distribution cost and expedited customer delivery expectations. In addition, two factors added complexity to the distribution network. First, many products had inherently different manufacturing and distribution requirements (i.e. lead-time, manufacturing processes, etc.). Second, different customer types had unique demand profiles for specific items (i.e. order sizes, shipping times, etc.).

A top priority among Weekends Only’s operational challenges is to continuously optimize the distribution of procured furniture from vendors all over the world to its warehouses and retail stores in the US. Historically, inbound ocean freight from Asia had been shipped via the Port of Los Angeles in California. However, recent developments have made the Port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River a potential attractive option. The Logistics Team at Weekends Only would like to explore the cost-benefit of multi-modal transportation via a combination of ocean, barge, and truck through the Port of New Orleans and Mississippi River. Specific interests include determining under which conditions; i.e., cost factors, lead time, capacity, etc., should Weekends Only opt for this alternative route or a combination of routes.

The Client, a major Russian telecom company, faced the challenge of optimizing its logistics network to match future demand forecasts and inventory optimization targets. The company operated a single-tier logistics network with around 150 warehouses, 2,500 points of sale, and about 20,000 operational sites holding inventory. The Client sought to develop an optimal logistics network model that would maintain a high level of logistics service at operational sites and points of sale while addressing the following key questions: the optimal hierarchy for the network, the costs and effects of implementing various inventory optimization policies, the required capacity and locations of warehouses considering future demand, and the optimal network transformation plan, including inventory relocation and timeline of warehouse closings.

GE Healthcare ships products from over 145 locations and faces an increasingly complex supply chain spanning multiple international borders, time zones, and regulatory environments. Over 40% of imports are destined for the United States, and 60%-70% of all global shipments are sent to intra-company locations for assembly and packaging. All other shipments are sent directly to customers, which are typically large hospital networks or resellers. With subsidiaries, suppliers, distributors, manufacturing facilities, carriers, brokers, and customers located worldwide, operations were fragmented and difficult to manage. Import and export compliance for the products being shipped is complicated. Many of the company’s goods fall under a dual-use classification — implying a potential for military use, requiring special licenses and documentation. Accuracy in all details is essential to determine proper export controls and the corresponding documentation to avoid potentially significant fines and cross-border delays. It became crucial for each business unit to automate its trade compliance processes — including product classification, restricted party screening, order-to-shipment compliance screening, and the generation of export documentation. Because of the range of borders crossed, it was equally important to ensure that any trade compliance software application used the most current regulatory data. Since the business units were operating on different enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, the company needed a solution that seamlessly integrated all these systems using a common framework.

Originally Aspire Bakeries was a TMS technology user, and the business was fragmented at that time. The company found that e2open’s Transportation Management solution was working well, but that there were additional capabilities that could bring more value to the business. The bakery was using the TMS primarily to tender freight out without fully leveraging the data and TMS functionality provided. With the combination of new business significantly increasing in volume and severe winter weather severely impacting the transport industry, Aspire Bakeries looked to e2open’s Logistics as a Service (LaaS) to capitalize on all the advantages of the TMS. Aspire Bakeries chose LaaS to fully leverage the TMS’s complex data and capabilities.

Costa Logistics wanted to move away from a decentralized software model to centrally control, maintain, and develop key applications across all sites. The company faced complexities due to separate data centers, different customer interfaces, and varied IT infrastructures at each warehouse facility. This led to significant costs in IT development, support, and maintenance. Additionally, Costa needed to present a common interface to customers and suppliers, track and manage their activity across operations, and ensure real-time information exchange to eradicate inventory inaccuracies and reduce handling errors.

Following a sustained period of rapid growth, including the acquisition of Peter Lehmann Wines, Casella Family Brands recognized a need to improve inventory visibility across its two distribution centers (DCs). The company also wanted to enhance its scalability to ensure it is set up for future growth. The ongoing expansion of the [yellow tail] range and the integration of Peter Lehmann Wines led Casella Family Brands to look to Manhattan’s SCALE solution to address its demanding distribution management and supply chain execution challenges.

Following a review of the business several years ago, Kiabi’s management team determined that the company’s supply chain systems infrastructure would not be robust enough to support the future expansion of the business. Kiabi’s proprietary warehouse management system had reached its limit in terms of throughput capacity, optimisation potential and flexibility. Picking waves could not be modified once they were underway, and the system did not offer the required flexibility for customs clearance. Kiabi reviewed the solutions available on the market with a view to helping the rapidly growing company achieve the following goals: Cost reduction and logistics performance improvement, Reduction in order-to-delivery cycle time, Support for Kiabi’s global expansion plans, Centralised execution and better control over the fulfilment of store orders, Optimisation of operational processes, Reliability and scalability of supply chain execution system.

3 Suisses France’s proprietary system was unable to support the rapid growth of the company’s e-commerce operation. The system was not scalable enough, lacked real-time inventory visibility, and did not offer the necessary flexibility to run a catalogue and e-commerce order fulfilment operation. To optimize the performance of its online sales channel, which now generates 50% of the multi-channel retailer’s revenues, 3 Suisses France set several key objectives. These included improving product availability, inventory accuracy, and rationalizing the order preparation process. Additionally, the company needed to support its multi-channel sales strategy by increasing its SKU range from 100,000 to 150,000 individual products while improving inventory visibility. Finally, 3 Suisses France sought to increase productivity levels and reduce operational costs.