DC Velocity - August 2018

The CEMA Application Guide for Unit Handling Conveyors

ALL NEW 2nd Edition

The most comprehensive
technical resource and
education guide available
for the Conveyor and
Intralogistics industries.

Developed by the Foremost Experts in the Industry

Buy a hard copy or download direct from:

www.cemanet.org/unitbook/

Conveyor Equipment
Manufacturers Association

5672 Strand Ct., Suite 2 • Naples, Florida 34110 • 239-514-3441

No other organization has
been more instrumental in the
development of standards,
technical information,
publications, safety practices
or engineering manuals than

CEMA, the Voice of the Conveyor Industry of the Americas.

www.dcvelocity.com AUGUST 2018 DC VELOCITY 33
in a phased approach,” says McLean.
“That’s the primary advice we would
have.”
Doing so means first taking a step back
and considering basic factors such as
the type of business you’re in, the prod-
ucts you sell, and your physical loca-
tion and assets. This allows companies
to establish better processes that will
then allow the implementation of better
technology solutions. McLean points to
BOPIS services as an example. It’s much
easier for a big box retailer to set aside
the space needed for such services than
it is for a smaller retailer located on the
second floor of a mall, he reasons. The
big box likely has more inventory space
to begin with, will find it easier to set
aside space for pickup, and may even be
able to add ship-from-store capabilities.
A smaller retailer may not have the space
for such activities at all, finding it neces-
sary to develop creative solutions to the
problem—only offering such services at
certain outlets, for example, or recon-
figuring space to accommodate packing
and shipping activities. Both entities
must deal with staffing issues—in the
form of scheduling and compensation
changes—as workers’ duties change.

“These are nuances people are
[addressing] as they think through
omnichannel and the way they [manage
inventory],” McLean says. “And there is
no way you can implement these chang-
es in one fell swoop.”
Charles Dimov, vice president of mar-
keting for OrderDynamics, adds that
once those issues are addressed, com-
panies can begin to tackle the invento-
ry visibility piece of the equation. He
points to an OrderDynamics customer
that made key changes to its inventory
strategy after putting the building blocks
in place to accommodate combined
online/in-store services such as BORIS
and BOPIS. Using a single inventory
platform, the retailer could see all avail-
able inventory across its network and
make in-store inventory visible to shop-
pers online, helping to drive them to its
retail outlets to make their purchase, or
to pick it up if purchased online. The
retailer eventually added a ship-from-
store service option as well. Together,
these changes allowed the retailer
to keep more inventory in the field,
closer to customers, and led to the
elimination of one of its distribu-
tion centers.
“This is a powerful tactic if used
correctly,” says Dimov, pointing to
both the cost savings and improved
customer service levels the project
yielded. “There are so many oppor-
tunities [available to you] when you
have a powerful system in place.”