June 2016

Glass Warehouse Initiative – Visibility in Managing Inventory

By Dave Jesse, COO

We continue to break down the blueprint behind our Glass Warehouse Initiative with my second of four posts on the subject. If you haven’t already read the initial press release (here) or my first post (here), I would encourage you to check out both to get a better understanding of what I am discussing. If you are skipping ahead, our Glass Warehouse Initiative was developed to make sure its clients get valuable insight into their supply chain. It breaks down into three key areas of focus for us – systems, technology, and data. Each plays an integral part in creating visibility throughout our facilities, from receiving and shipping to managing inventory and data analytics.

My focus for this second post will be to discuss how the Glass Warehouse Initiative enables our clients visibility in managing inventory. In plain terms, inventory management allows companies to oversee the constant flow of units into and out of an existing inventory. That can be a very difficult task, especia lly when you have clients like ours with thousands of SKU’s.

Luckily, Bonded has put in place a robust set of systems to make it easy for clients to manage inventory in our warehouses. This ability centers around our warehouse management system (WMS) from Cadre Technologies. Our WMS helps us accurately manage inventory by tracking orders, shipments, and workflows by aggregating data from multiple sources such as client ERP systems and shipping software. Additionally, we store this information on our cloud-based server systems to improve performance and reliability as well as reduce costs.

These systems are able to operate efficiently because of the investment we’ve made in technology. This technology takes on many forms throughout our facilities, such as RF guns for scanning inventory in and out, barcode printers for labeling, tablets for conducing physical inventories (more on this in a minute), and RF-enabled wireless warehouses to ensure data transactions are updated in real-time.

As you can imagine, these systems and technologies generate a lot of data. Through our propriety internet web portal called BLI Web, we make this data available to our clients for easy access to view inventories. Here, customized reports are available to check inventory on hand, see what’s been picked and shipped, view out-of-stock inventory, and set min/max inventory levels to make sure you never run out of product for orders.

Another aspect of managing inventory that has been realized through the Glass Warehouse Initiative is our ability to improve our physical inventory process. Physical inventory counts are typically a long, drawn out process done once a year that involves a lot of paperwork and manual labor. But now, utilizing our WMS, BLI Web, and tablets, we have totally overhauled this process to make it quicker, less labor intensive, and much more accurate.

To help illustrate this, we had one of our largest clients come in to do a physical inventory audit earlier this month. Last year, we did a trial run using the tablets and they were excited to not just be able to see the counts updated in real-time, but the speed and accuracy of the entire process. This year, we opted to do the entire inventory using the tablets and cut the time it took almost in half with half the labor. This provided a tremendous cost savings and reduced warehouse downtime, which allowed us to begin shipping orders sooner.

What this has shown our clients is that because we have been so successful with accuracy for these physical counts, we can now incorporate more cycle counting throughout the year and eliminate the need for physical inventories all together. Imagine how much time, personnel, and money that would save!

Does your logistics partner offer up this kind of visibility? If not, reach out to us so we can discuss how we can help!

Q&A: CPG Customer on the Benefits of Outsourcing Packaging

By Jan McCormick, Jr., Marketing Director

One of the best parts about my job as Marketing Director at Bonded is that I get the opportunity to talk to a lot of interesting people that work in our industry. I had the chance to speak with one of our Bonded Pac CPG customers, a Product Manager with a Fortune 500 company, to learn more about their decision to work with us. The answers provide some great perspective on not only that decision, but more significantly how outsourcing packaging has helped grow their business. Hope you get out of it as much as I did!

Tell us a little bit about your role and the type of packaging projects you work on?

My role here is as a Distribution Product Manager. I have responsibility for all of our promotional shipper display projects. That would include floor stand displays, table-top or end-cap type displays, as well as pallet displays for clubs.

What made you decide to look into outsourcing packaging for your company?

The driving factor behind this was that we acquired another brand and moved all of their distribution to another one of our facilities. In doing that, there was more of a premium put on pick-pack space than shipper-build space because our shipper-builds typically tend to be very seasonal, except for some of our replenishment programs, which are for the most part one-off programs. We could not justify dedicating the space within the facility to have for building these internally. That’s what drove us to try and source a contract packager that could pack these out for us.

What were your requirements when looking for a co-packer? What was most important for you?

We needed someone who was regionally acceptable. We didn’t want to ship all of our product all over the nation trying to get it packed. We were looking for someone who’s cost would be in-line with what our expectation was as far as comparing it to what it would cost us to do it, understanding that there was the possibility of a premium for having to source someone to do it. We also needed someone who was flexible enough to be able to do these one-off projects because they were pretty seasonal.

How did Bonded Pac get involved?

What drove us to Bonded Pac is that we were packing out all of our shippers at a competitor in the area. About a month before pack-out on one of our very large projects, they let us know they could not complete the pack out in time to meet our upcoming ship date. We were in a bind to find another co-packer and Bill (Gilmore, PAC Sales Manager) had been to our facility the previous week. We asked him and Jon (Hayward, PAC Vice President) to come for a meeting, told them what we needed, and they said they could do it. Bonded was able to perform and deliver what we needed in a very short time frame and turn-around, with little to no warning. That was pretty impressive to us as a CPG customer. That’s basically how we got our relationship started.

How has the experience been working with us since that first project?

Anything we have asked you guys to do, we’ve been extremely pleased with the outcome. Every step of the process, Bonded has pretty much buttoned up. Anytime we have a project come up, I have absolutely no concerns about sending them to Bonded because I know the project is in good hands with your group. Your follow-up and attention to detail on everything has been superb.

What’s been one of the best parts of utilizing a co-packer like Bonded PAC?

The convenience of having Pac close by for quick, turn-around times, but also the ability to go to the contractor and be able to have conversations at a moment’s notice, or take a look at a problem and figure out how we correct it without having to do it through email or overnight or travel. Those are very big benefits. Resolution time for any project would be the big kicker. We can turn something around in a day depending on the size and the need.

If you are a CPG manufacturer and tend to not have a lot of issues with product availability, I think it becomes an exercise in thinking, how much would it cost me if I have to do any kind of packaging, whether that’s blister, or having to put on hangers, or into a poly-bag, how much is it going to cost me to purchase the equipment, find the floor space, and get the labor, versus going to a contract packager. That’s the value proposition.

Has outsourcing packaging changed the way you do business?

At this point, we don’t even think about doing any (display) projects in-house because of our space constraints. However, working with Bonded has also allowed us to look at other kinds of projects for what we term standard packaging. Our product already comes to us packaged ready for the consumer. Occasionally, we have product that is not packaged properly, or we have a packaging change and have to pull product to completely change the packaging on it. We have run some of these bulk packaging projects through you guys and had very good success with it.

What we have learned is that even though we have our own in-house resources, we know that we don’t have to solely rely on us. We now have other options out there based on your performance. What it’s allowed us to do is say, hey, we might be able to take on more, different types of projects because we know have a resource that we can use to ramp up our capacity if needed.

Are you ready to take on more and grow your business? If so, Bonded Pac can help by taking care of your packaging efforts and streamlining your supply chain. Reach out to us today to get started!

Bonded Logistics Completes ISO 9001 Recertification, Adds Two Facilities to Certificate

CHARLOTTE, NC (June 21, 2016) – Bonded Logistics, a customer-focused third-party logistics (3PL) provider headquartered in Charlotte, NC announced today that the company has been recertified by the Management Certification of North America (MCNA) to the ISO 9001 Standard. This is after an extensive five-day audit, which included a recommendation by the global registrar to add two facilities to Bonded’s certificate.

“Recertification to the ISO 9001 Standard is a great accomplishment,” stated Scott Carr, president of the privately owned supply chain management company. “This is only possible due to the efforts of each and every one of our team members involved with the process.”

The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9001 Standard provides guidance and tools across various aspects of quality management to help companies be more efficient and effective. This ISO 9001 recertification audit, which took place in the first quarter of 2016, covered five days and six locations. The MCNA auditor reviewed documentation and processes for 20 different elements such as contracts, inventory control, labeling, corrective actions, and training.

“ISO certification provides a systematic control of activities that ensure the needs and expectations of our clients are met,” stated Wallace Everett, who was hired in 2014 as Quality Administrator/Project Manager for Bonded Logistics. “This recertification shows our commitment to meet those needs at a very high level for both accuracy and efficiency.”

In addition to the recertification, the MCNA auditor toured two additional facilities that Bonded had been preparing for ISO certification. The first facility, located in Salisbury, NC, opened in July of last year with processes and documentation that met ISO standards with certification in mind. The second facility, located in south Charlotte, has been part of the Bonded footprint since 2006 and already had work instructions and documentation in place based on customer needs. Bonded took this opportunity to start writing additional work instructions utilizing tools from the ISO quality toolbox to implement all of the programs necessary to meet the ISO standard.

This ISO 9001 recertification, coupled with the two additional facilities, means that 8 of 14 Bonded locations meet the ISO Standard. “Our long term goal is to get all of our facilities certified under ISO standards,” added Carr. “We see it as vital to not only how we run our business more efficiently, but to provide a better way to help meet or exceed our customers’ needs.”