excess inventory from our U.S. stores,” he said. OTIF is a “key component”
of those improvements, he said.
The new scheduling initiative is aimed at eliminating the manual process that
Walmart said in its communiqué makes it “virtually impossible to prioritize
purchase orders presenting the most value to our customers when our network
is at capacity.” Automating DC appointments “means less administration for
our suppliers and carriers,” the company said. In the future, Walmart purchase
orders will contain such information as appointment date and time, destination,
and appointment number, according to the document.
“After full implementation, there should be no more DC callbacks and no
more phone calls to schedule delivery appointments,” Walmart said.
Automating delivery appointments will require synchronizing customer
demand, suppliers’ logistical requirements, and Walmart’s network capacity
requirements, the company said. Suppliers and carriers will hear more in April
about how to integrate their logistical parameters into the broader operation,
Walmart said.
The changes to OTIF and the planned rollout of the scheduling platform
were announced last month at a Walmart national supplier meeting in
Bentonville, Ark.
—Mark Solomon
18 DC VELOCITY MARCH 2018 www.dcvelocity.com
newsworthy
go figure …
80–90%
The percentage of e-commerce returns last year in
which the packages’ contents were found to be
non-defective. Retailers are
grappling with a deluge
of returns from consumers
ordering multiple versions
of a product, keeping one
and returning the rest.
SOURCE: REVERSE LOGISTICS
ASSOCIATION
Honeywell rolls out two rugged computers to streamline
fulfillment
Honeywell International Inc. has rolled out two rugged
mobile computers that it said would streamline fulfillment
operations by connecting workers and DCs to cloud-based
databases and the Internet of Things (Io T).
The Dolphin CN80 Mobile Computer
(photo) and 8680i Smart Wearable are
part of Honeywell’s vision of a “
connected distribution center” that leverages
machine-learning algorithms to predict
snarls before they happen and avoid fulfillment backups, Honeywell executives
said in a webcast at the company’s partner
conference in Dallas.
Distribution center managers are struggling to keep the rising tide of e-commerce volume from backing up order
processing functions in the face of rising
stock-keeping unit (SKU) diversity, order
complexity, labor variables, and inventory
congestion, the Morris Plains, N.J.-based
company said. Warehouse workers can handle those challenges more efficiently if they are equipped with mobile
computers that can access tools like augmented reality,
machine learning, and smart robotics, Pieter Krynauw,
president of Honeywell Intelligrated, said in the webcast.
“Our customers that operate DCs ask how they can do
more, faster, across the entire enterprise,” Krynauw said.
“We are helping our customers embark on a digital trans-
formation journey that allows them to capitalize on all the
information in their facilities, from sensor to cloud, from
receiving to shipping, across the operation.”
By offering technology including its
“Momentum” warehouse execution sys-
tem (WES) and “Mobility Edge” fami-
ly of mobile computers, Honeywell said
it could help users improve warehouse
equipment utilization and reliability at a
reduced cost by combining software, sen-
sors, and controllers to enable predictive
analytics.
The new warehouse computers help
enable different parts of that vision, the
company said. The CN80 is an ultra-rug-ged mobile computer that combines a traditional keyboard with a modern touch-screen interface and runs Google Inc.’s
The 8680i is a hand-mounted wearable device designed
for fulfillment employees working in rapid delivery operations. It streamlines scan-intensive tasks by replacing a
separate scanner and handheld computer with a single
platform, Honeywell said.
