Victoria Kickham started her career as a newspaper reporter in the Boston area before moving into B2B journalism. She has covered manufacturing, distribution and supply chain issues for a variety of publications in the industrial and electronics sectors, and now writes about everything from forklift batteries to omnichannel business trends for DC Velocity.
Leaders at New Jersey-based footwear company Aetrex were looking for a way to meet ambitious growth goals in a changing market, and technology turned out to be the answer to the challenge. Responding to double-digit growth and a shift in business strategy, the global comfort and wellness brand has put supply chain management front and center thanks to a warehouse management software (WMS) solution from technology company Tecsys that has radically changed its order fulfillment and management process. Today, the footwear company is serving its direct customers and distributors faster and more accurately than ever before, while also reducing internal costs.
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
Aetrex needed to evolve from its largely paper-based warehouse operations to an automated system in order to keep up with growth and adjust to its new go-to-market strategy. The company had decided around 2020 to completely outsource its manufacturing operations, turning its focus to product design and quality, technology, supply chain, and customer service as it grew. This required a system that could support its distribution mix and increasingly complex supply chain. The company handles 20,000 different stock-keeping units (SKUs) and processes about 2,000 orders per day. Aetrex also needed a warehouse system that could meet the unique challenges of the footwear market, which includes a complex inventory management system due to size variations and seasonality.
Aetrex chose Tecsys’ Elite Enterprise solutions, including its Elite WMS and Elite Distribution ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications, primarily for their robust, out-of-the-box capabilities. The suite of solutions was deployed in about five months and yielded immediate results. Today, Aetrex is handling an 80% increase in volume with minimal added staff, has increased inventory accuracy by 70%, and has reduced costs by 24%, according to company leaders.
MAKING IT WORK
Aetrex’s central distribution facilities, located at its headquarters in Teaneck, New Jersey, consist of two warehouses, totaling 150,000 square feet. The company receives orders daily, primarily through EDI (electronic data interchange); the sales orders are automatically entered into the Tecsys system, which triggers the picking process from inventory, either one order at a time or through a batch order process. Non-distributor orders are usually shipped the same day, with rush orders given priority: If an order is received by 2 p.m., it is shipped that day. Shipments to distributors are scheduled and processed weekly.
The product receiving process is automated as well. Aetrex’s products are manufactured by supplier partners in the United States, China, and the Dominican Republic and then delivered to the New Jersey DC. Upon arrival, the shipments are scanned into the WMS, inspected for quality, and then either shipped right away or put into inventory. The WMS communicates “up and down the line” to keep orders moving.
“For example, receiving needs to know in advance about incoming products; it needs to be advised that an item was received and should be immediately shipped or put away into a stocking location,” the companies wrote in a case study describing the WMS implementation. “Down the line, communication with Tecsys’ EDI package enables the system to generate an advance ship notice (ASN) to advise the customer on a timely basis. With Tecsys’ EDI functionality, Aetrex [can] automatically pass orders through the entire system from receipt of an order to shipping and billing. It also helps to maximize customer responsiveness, increase turnover, reduce cost, and meet trading partner requirements.”
The result is a system that responds quickly to the demands of a complex order environment. The Elite solution has helped Aetrex reduce order processing time from two to three days down to the current “in by 2 p.m., out the same day” timeframe for non-distributor orders. The system has helped reduce cycle time for larger orders by implementing a coordinated team picking process. And fill rates have improved by 45%, according to the companies.
“[Tecsys] has enabled us to grow at a very aggressive rate, and without it, we would have not been able to achieve our strategic sales and customer service goals,” says John Mattessich, director of distribution at Aetrex Worldwide Inc. “We went from paper-based to RF (radio-frequency) technology in a very short period of time; this leap has enabled us to increase our productivity, [boost] our volume, and … manage our distribution and sales commitments, with a minimal increase in staff.”
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.