RefrigiWear warms up to Varsity Logistics TMS solution to provide exceptional customer service. |
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Company Background:
RefrigiWear is the undisputed leader in the insulated clothing market. It manufactures and sells over ninety-five styles of insulated clothing, headwear, accessories and covers while employing over one hundred people. As pioneers in the science of insulated clothing, the founders launched the insulated apparel industry and a company, RefrigiWear, striving to combine the highest customer satisfaction with top quality products and world-class service. Today, RefrigiWear continues to build on fifty years of success and looks forward to another fifty years of warm, comfortable customers.
Business Goals:
The company's goals are to stay focused on the client's requirements, develop products that can quickly and cost effectively be brought to market, and keep workers warm, safe and productive.
Challenges:
The shipping solution originally in place at RefrigiWear had been presenting challenges that were impeding the company's ability to service their customers as efficiently as possible. In addition to trying to use multiple tools to meet their shipping goals, none of these tools were interfaced to one another. Starship, the original package chosen years ago to manage their small package requirements was limited to only small packages. In addition, they were relying heavily on the internet to work with the multiple LTL carriers they were using. Each carrier’s website was accessed for rates, labels, etc. making the process open to human error. In addition, on the freight side of the business, full truckloads of product had to be built manually, which itself was a time consuming task.
To further complicate the situation, there was no easy way to analyze all of their shipping data to validate their shipping strategy, and make the necessary adjustments based on volumes, locations, etc. The data had to be assembled manually and then summarized for management review. This too was a time consuming task and the information was not current.
Solution Requirements:
Understanding that the shipping system they were using was costing the company money, Scotty DePriest, RefrigiWear's VP of Operations, set out to find a solution that would streamline their process, improve efficiency and lower costs. With additional input from his IT Director, Robert Scarboro, and his warehouse manager, the team proceeded to identify and define their key functional requirements.
One key requirement that weighed heavily was that the solution needed to run on the IBM System i that RefrigiWear has just recently invested in. "In addition, we wanted the solution to be seamlessly integrated into our newly deployed back office ERP solution, VAI's S2K," states Robert Scarboro, Director of IT.
Scotty adds, "In addition, to the solution being able to support multi modal shipping, it had to capture rates and costs, consolidate the shipping data, and give us the ability to make decisions real time."
For the staff at RefrigiWear, it was imperative that the new shipping solution also have the ability to support the shipment of small packages globally.
Selection Process
Once the team at RefrigiWear indentified their requirements, they began a search for an IBM System i based multi-carrier shipping solution that would meet their needs and be seamlessly interfaced to the S2K ERP solution just implemented. The company started their search by speaking to their contacts at VAI, their ERP solution provider, and researched the internet for IBM iSeries ISV’s that developed an iSeries based shipping solution.
After much analysis, it became clear that the Varsity Logistics TMS solution would be the best fit for their business and it would meet all of the current requirements, as well as have the ability to grow with their organization as their requirements changed.
As a final measure, the team also took the time to call on some existing Varsity customers that were also running the VAI ERP solution. Varsity, having a formal business partner relationship with VAI had experience with the S2K application, and the feedback from the VAI/Varsity customers was all positive.
"It became clear as we did our analysis, and considered everything, that Varsity Logistics was the right solution for RefrigiWear. VAI was able to provide us with a well developed interface to the Varsity code, and the Varsity folks were well versed in the shipping industry and were familiar with carrier compliance," states Robert.
Implementation
From planning to execution, the Varsity Logistics professional services team worked in partnership with RefrigiWear and VAI to execute a full solution implementation. Roberto Ansaloni, Varsity Logistics Director of Professional Services, states, "We have a talented staff of experienced and dedicated people, who are 100 percent focused on our customer success."
Although VAI provide a fully developed interface to their backend S2K ERP software, there was some tweaking necessary to accommodate RefrigiWear's specific requirements. VAI, Varsity and RefrigiWear worked together to identify any custom changes and worked as a team to incorporate and test these changes.
Results and Benefits
With the deployment of the Varsity Logistics shipping solution, RefrigiWear has reduced their shipping errors and increased efficiency at all of their shipping stations. In addition, the integration between their shipping solution and their VAI S2K Enterprise Management Software has been a tremendous benefit for RefrigiWear.
The ability to have all of their carriers, regardless of type, centralized into one application running on one server has proved to be invaluable. It provided the customer service department with shipping costs and enabled them to respond to customer requests for shipment tracking information.
With the ability to view historical shipping information, the organization was also able to analyze various shipping strategies.
Scotty states, "RefrigiWear has been able to gain efficiency and speed in our shipping process, eliminating manual entry, and essentially reduce our cost at the same time. We now have greater visibility to on-line tracking information."
As the leading manufacturer of insulated industrial outerwear for over fifty years, RefrigiWear provides its customers the highest quality of service, whether it’s in the design of the shopping environment or in the delivery of the product. Varsity Logistics has been able to provide the company with the tools to maintain that level of customer service.
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