The Jel Sert Corp WISE-ly improves their distribution operations

Jel Sert chose a warehouse management solution that could tightly integrate with its current IT infrastructure, automate critical warehouse and distribution processes, and scale with the increasingly complex needs of the company.

Business Results

Distribution center employee productivity has increased over 30%, and despite growth in orders, inventories, and SKUs since implementing WISE, Jel Sert has improved labor productivity.

Operational Results

In less than a year, Jel Sert has increased full pallet accuracy from about 80% to 99.93% and partial case accuracy from about 60% to 99.94%.

When your business is based on the timely delivery of high-quality products, the efficient management of your distribution center becomes critical. As the Jel Sert Company was expanding its business to support new brands and new channels, it was clear their current physical and IT infrastructure could not support their increasingly complex business demands.

Founded in 1926, Jel Sert offers popular regional and national consumer food product brands, including: Pop-IceÒ, Otter Pops®, and Fla-Vor-IceÒ freeze pops; MondoÒ Fruit Squeezers; the RoyalÒ brand of puddings, gelatins, flans, and no-bake cheesecakes; and the My*T*Fine premium cook-and-serve pudding brand.
“ Our business was expanding and our distribution requirements became too complex for a manual environment,” said Andrew Rush, Vice President of Logistics and Procurement. As a first step to expand its distribution capabilities, the company built a new state-of-the-art distribution center near its Chicago plant. The next step was to implement state-of-the-art technology to run that distribution center.


Enabling Business Expansion

Several years earlier, Jel Sert selected financial, manufacturing, and sales management applications from Progress partner QAD to help run the business. However, the warehousing and distribution functions were based on labor-intensive manual processes. With the acquisition of the Royal and My*T*Fine brands, the increasing complexity of their distribution process, and the construction of their new distribution center, it was imperative Jel Sert automate those warehouse and distribution processes and integrate its business systems if the company wanted to maximize its growth potential.

“ Our QAD ERP system provides the reliability and power we need to automate production,” said Rush. “But we knew we needed to automate warehousing and distribution.” The addition of new products and channels were increasing the complexity of the business. For example, Jel Sert’s acquisition of the Royal brand doubled the number of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) to track and manage. This acquisition also increased warehousing complexity and increased case picking requirements.

Previously, most of the Jel Sert products shipped on full pallets, but the many different flavors of the Royal products required a greater shift toward partial pallet warehousing, picking and shipping—which required increased labor for storage and case picking.

Jel Sert wanted continue to build on the reliability, low cost of ownership, and ease of maintenance of its Progress database environment and development tools. To support their need for automated warehousing and distribution processes, Jel Sert evaluated various integrated warehousing and distribution applications. “We needed warehouse management applications that could integrate with our existing infrastructure yet operate independently, and we needed to automate critical business processes and scale infrastructure to meet the increasingly complex needs of our company,” said Rush. By improving warehouse productivity, the company hoped to reduce inventory, improve customer satisfaction, and increase profits.

Management wanted a best-of-breed Warehouse Management System (WMS) that could provide support for initial requirements while offering the scalability and functionality to support long-term growth plans. While smooth integration with existing enterprise resource planning applications was crucial, Jel Sert wanted a full-featured WMS that would support future plans to monitor, manage, and control inventory from raw materials through finished goods and distribution.

Jel Sert selected the rules-based Warehouse Information System Expert (WISE) applications from Royal 4, a Progress partner. An expert in the logistics and warehousing industries, Royal 4 had the focused expertise and knowledge Jel Sert sought. According to Rush, “When we opened our new distribution center we were still running manual processes that limited the growth opportunities for our business. By deploying WISE, we knew we could create a world-class warehousing and distribution environment that would not only improve productivity but also better support corporate growth objectives.”


Improving Warehouse Efficiency

WISE provides the software infrastructure to manage inventories, pick-and-pack orders, perform value added operations, and ship customer orders according to detailed customer instructions. Built on the flexible OpenEdge platform, WISE easily integrates with Jel Sert’s existing business systems enabling management to gain an enterprise view of production and warehousing. Jel Sert deployed the WISE applications only months ago but is already realizing tremendous warehousing efficiencies.

Inventory is tracked from the moment it is received through every step of the warehousing process until it is shipped. All finished goods inventory is controlled at the item level, by SKU number, and by quantity, location and lot. Stocking and picking tasks are automatically generated according to flexible business rules defined in the WISE application. Jel Sert built a Radio Frequency (RF) wireless network to communicate with employees throughout the distribution center, and WISE allows management to run the distribution center using real-time inventory status and quantities.

Extensive stocking functionality allows Jel Sert to utilize many different styles and methods of putaway stocking techniques. Using the wireless network to communicate the putaway tasks, WISE directs distribution center employees to the proper location—with the correct equipment—in the most efficient route and manner. All RF putaway transactions are confirmed with a location bar-code scan to ensure real-time inventory accuracy.

WISE generates the putaway task based on business rules to most efficiently direct warehouse personnel to put items away based on either the item itself, its product group, locations, and/or any combination of the three. Stock picking is now similarly implemented over the RF network based on location, employee availability, and business rules defined by Jel Sert.

According to Rush, “We now make dramatically more productive use of inventory. We have implemented product First-in/First Out (FIFO) rotation so we no longer strand older products in the warehouse. This has also allowed us to reduce spoilage and make sure that finished goods get into the channels faster, fresher and more efficiently.”

Rush estimates that warehouse employee productivity has already increased over 30%. Despite growth in orders, inventories, and SKUs since implementing WISE, Jel Sert has improved labor productivity. “Our employees know exactly what to do and they have the tools they need to do their jobs well. Each forklift has a computer and employees have handheld devices that automatically provide detailed instructions,” he declared.
Training of new employees has historically been a challenge. Management was initially concerned that the warehouse automation program would scare off employees—but found the opposite to be true.

“ Nothing is tethered in our warehouse,” said Rush. “Employees have found it easier to learn their jobs because of the task-based approach we have been able to implement. We define and adapt the business rules, and employees get clear direction on the tasks they must complete. Tasks are clear, results are quantified, and we continue to measure performance statistics and tweak the business rules to further increase productivity.”


Supporting Seasonal Demands

Jel Sert faces the challenge of accommodating seasonal demands for some of its products, so it is paramount to integrate production, warehousing, and distribution to stock the channels during the prime selling periods. “The key to productive picking of inventory is smart putaway, and WISE offers powerful tools that allow us to implement putaway rules that support massive seasonal demand spikes,” stated Rush.

Jel Sert refines the business rules to optimize the use of inventory and accommodate seasonal demands. “WISE not only provides the flexibility to define tasks based on business rules, but it also allows us to measure business velocity,” said Rush. “We can analyze freshness, stocking and picking efficiency, labor productivity, and space utilization.”

He continued, “Our freezer pops business has a very short season but we’ve been able to fit more finished good in less space. This has not only allowed us to more efficiently manage seasonal demand; it has allowed us to avoid the cost of renting overflow warehousing space to accommodate the seasonality of our business.” Rush estimates that the improvements in stocking and picking have already delivered at least a ten percent improvement in warehouse space utilization.

Jel Sert defines full pallet accuracy as having the right pallets in the right location, and within the first several months of deploying WISE it increased full pallet accuracy to 99.93%--up from an average of about 80% over the previous year. The company has also dramatically improved partial case accuracy to 99.94%—up from an average the previous year of about 60%.


Measuring Business Results

WISE offers a graphical user interface that provides Jel Sert with many different views of the warehouse and its inventory. And Jel Sert relies on flexible Progress tools for generating custom reports and analyzing warehouse performance. A visual display allows management to view stocking locations and drill down to analyze inventory status. Flexibly customized reporting capabilities allow Jel Sert to continuously improve warehousing efficiency, reduce cycle time, and enhance labor productivity.

Jel Sert has not only gained the ability to streamline partial pallet shipping to support customer requirements; WISE allows Jel Sert to implement flexible packing, shipping, and manifest completion operations. “We now regularly provide the tailored manifests and reporting information that our customers have been requesting,” stated Rush. Customer requirements are defined once in the system and WISE automatically generates customized shipping requirements, bills of lading, and inventory reports tailored to the unique needs of each customer.


Preparing for the Future

Jel Sert is entering the next phase in its warehouse automation program and is preparing to use WISE to manage raw materials and Work in Progress (WIP). Rush explained, “We’re pleased with our open systems approach. We have an easy-to-maintain and robust database that centralizes inventory control and provides the reliability we need to support our around-the-clock warehousing and distribution requirements to prepare for summertime demands.”

The Progress RDBMS and application development and maintenance tools have allowed Jel Sert to manage database transactions that have increased tenfold over the past five years. “Royal 4 and Progress have provided the technology and services that allow Jel Sert to successfully automate warehousing and distribution while improving business productivity and preparing for continued growth of products and channels.”