find another way to keep detailed records on the items
moving through its supply chain while still meeting customers’ demands for swift order turnaround.
At your service
The company solved the problem by going with a warehouse management system (WMS) delivered on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis. It signed on to use San Francisco-based Smart Turn’s Inventory and Warehouse Management
System (Smart Turn has since been acquired by RedPrairie,
and the system is currently being rebranded as RedPrairie’s
On-Demand WMS). The system essentially allows West
International to outsource most of its IT functions, storing
the hardware, software, and data offsite. The company simply accesses the system when needed.
For West International, the SaaS approach offered a number of advantages. The company was able to avoid a huge
upfront capital outlay for software licenses; instead, it simply pays a monthly “rental” fee to the vendor. It also avoided the hassles and expense of a lengthy implementation.
Galluzzo reports that the system was up and running in a
month—a fraction of the time needed for WMS implementations he’s been involved with elsewhere. And because
the vendor maintains the application on the server end
(including secure backup systems), West International
doesn’t have to devote in-house resources to servicing and
updating the system. All the company needs are a computer and a T- 1 line.
“We are pharmacists, not IT people. We did not want to
invest in an IT infrastructure,” explains Galluzzo.
“Smart Turn allows us to track every single item that comes
into our warehouse. Anything we need, it can do—and at a
price point where we could not lose.”
Making waves
Today, West International uses the system to track thousands
of products throughout its network. As incoming shipments
arrive at the Florida warehouse, workers sort the items by
SKU, lot, and expiration date and place them in containers.
Meanwhile, a bar-code label “license plate” is generated for
each container. When the sorting is finished, workers attach
the labels to containers and scan the bar codes in order to
capture the data for the Smart Turn system.
From receiving, most supplies and pharmaceuticals are
moved via cart to storage. As workers in the storage area
place the containers on shelves, they scan the storage location’s bar code so the Smart Turn software will know which
products are stored where. The system then sends the
updated information to West International’s QuickBooks
software, which keeps track of inventory.
Orders at the Florida DC are received through
QuickBooks and then transferred to the Smart Turn WMS
for processing. The system generates a paper pick list for
each order that specifies the location, item SKU, lot number, expiration date, and quantity of products to pick. As
pickers select the items, they verify the information against
the list. Before shipping, orders undergo a final review to
assure accuracy, which currently stands at greater than 99
percent. Order accuracy is particularly critical for West
International because of the obvious difficulty of replacing
incorrect items once customers are at sea.
“We can’t afford returns. It has to be accurate. No mistakes is our goal,” says Galluzzo.
After final inspection, orders move on to a checkout area,
where an associate at a terminal keys in the data needed to
complete the order. Once it receives the data, Smart Turn
passes it along to QuickBooks for inventory updating and
billing. The system also generates a printed copy of the
tracking data, with lot numbers and expiration dates, for
inclusion in the shipment to the customer. Smart Turn provides similar tracking data to a third-party provider that
generates reports for the state of Florida as part of the compliance process. Galluzzo says he eventually hopes to bring
the state reporting function in house.
Smooth sailing
As for how the software has performed so far, Galluzzo has
nothing but praise. “The price and flexibility of the system as
well as the people we work with at Smart Turn have been fantastic,” he says. “I have done a lot of software implementations
and it can be painful. But this has been an absolute pleasure.”
The results have been impressive too, he says. Not only
has the SmartTurn system eased the compliance burden,
but it also reduced order turnaround times. That’s a huge
plus for a supplier to the cruise ship industry, where delivery windows are tight—cruise ships are only in port for a
short time—and orders tend to be complex. (Because ships
have to stock a wide range of products in a limited space, an
order may contain 50 to 100 line items but in very small
quantities—say, six cotton balls or eight pills.) The
SmartTurn software allows West International to turn
orders the same day, which is a huge competitive advantage.
But perhaps the best endorsement of the system is
Galluzzo’s advice to West International’s parent company,
which is grappling with the demands of rapid growth. With
business expanding at a rate of nearly 30 percent a year, L.E.
West’s paper-based system is reaching the limits of its capacity. Rather than put further strain on the system, Galluzzo is
recommending that the U.K. operation replace it with something different—a solution similar to Smart Turn.
