Colony Brands gains flexibility and cost savings with BluJay
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- BluJay Parcel
Tech Stack
- Multi-carrier shipping management system
- Cloud
- Rate shopping
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Productivity Improvements
- Customer Satisfaction
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
- Functional Applications - Transportation Management Systems (TMS)
Applicable Industries
- Retail
- Consumer Goods
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases
- Fleet Management
- Inventory Management
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- System Integration
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
About The Customer
Colony Brands, Inc., founded in 1926, is the United States' first mail-order cheese business. Over the years, the company has expanded its offerings to include 10 brands, featuring both food and non-food catalogs. Initially focused on selling and shipping cheese by mail, Colony Brands has diversified its product range to include clothing, appliances, jewelry, furniture, and other general merchandise. The company is headquartered in Monroe, Wisconsin, and has a significant presence on the West Coast. With a rich history and a broad product portfolio, Colony Brands has established itself as a leader in the mail-order and specialty food gift industry.
The Challenge
Colony Brands, the first mail-order cheese business in the U.S., faced a significant challenge in managing its shipping operations, especially during its peak season. The company, which now includes 10 brands and offers both food and non-food catalogs, needed a solution to handle over 1,500,000 shipments in an eight-week period. This peak period accounts for approximately 80% of its annual shipping volume. The challenge was to manage throughput, ensure carrier compliance, and customize labeling to streamline the shipping process during this critical time.
The Solution
In 2002, Colony Brands partnered with BluJay Solutions to implement the BluJay Parcel solution. This enterprise-class multi-carrier shipping management system supports complex, high-volume, multi-locational, international, and domestic shipping. The solution was designed to provide cost control, decrease volume during early December, and eliminate shipping interruptions during the peak season. BluJay Parcel offers flexibility, allowing Colony Brands to move the product to the cloud, keep it in an internal data center, or opt for a hybrid solution. The system has helped Colony Brands reduce outbound carrier shipping costs, correctly use DIM with new rates, and leverage rate shopping. Additionally, BluJay Parcel has streamlined workflows by integrating shipping solutions with existing material handling systems and host applications, improving speed and reliability.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Case Study missing?
Start adding your own!
Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.
Related Case Studies.
.png)
Case Study
Improving Vending Machine Profitability with the Internet of Things (IoT)
The vending industry is undergoing a sea change, taking advantage of new technologies to go beyond just delivering snacks to creating a new retail location. Intelligent vending machines can be found in many public locations as well as company facilities, selling different types of goods and services, including even computer accessories, gold bars, tickets, and office supplies. With increasing sophistication, they may also provide time- and location-based data pertaining to sales, inventory, and customer preferences. But at the end of the day, vending machine operators know greater profitability is driven by higher sales and lower operating costs.
Case Study
Improving Production Line Efficiency with Ethernet Micro RTU Controller
Moxa was asked to provide a connectivity solution for one of the world's leading cosmetics companies. This multinational corporation, with retail presence in 130 countries, 23 global braches, and over 66,000 employees, sought to improve the efficiency of their production process by migrating from manual monitoring to an automatic productivity monitoring system. The production line was being monitored by ABB Real-TPI, a factory information system that offers data collection and analysis to improve plant efficiency. Due to software limitations, the customer needed an OPC server and a corresponding I/O solution to collect data from additional sensor devices for the Real-TPI system. The goal is to enable the factory information system to more thoroughly collect data from every corner of the production line. This will improve its ability to measure Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and translate into increased production efficiencies. System Requirements • Instant status updates while still consuming minimal bandwidth to relieve strain on limited factory networks • Interoperable with ABB Real-TPI • Small form factor appropriate for deployment where space is scarce • Remote software management and configuration to simplify operations
Case Study
How Sirqul’s IoT Platform is Crafting Carrefour’s New In-Store Experiences
Carrefour Taiwan’s goal is to be completely digital by end of 2018. Out-dated manual methods for analysis and assumptions limited Carrefour’s ability to change the customer experience and were void of real-time decision-making capabilities. Rather than relying solely on sales data, assumptions, and disparate systems, Carrefour Taiwan’s CEO led an initiative to find a connected IoT solution that could give the team the ability to make real-time changes and more informed decisions. Prior to implementing, Carrefour struggled to address their conversion rates and did not have the proper insights into the customer decision-making process nor how to make an immediate impact without losing customer confidence.
Case Study
Digital Retail Security Solutions
Sennco wanted to help its retail customers increase sales and profits by developing an innovative alarm system as opposed to conventional connected alarms that are permanently tethered to display products. These traditional security systems were cumbersome and intrusive to the customer shopping experience. Additionally, they provided no useful data or analytics.
