BY DAVID MALONEY
SENIOR EDITOR
problemsolved
Problem: Lackluster order
picking performance
The Problem: Last summer,
Hawaiian food distributor Suisan Corp. was
experiencing what might be described as a
bit of trouble in paradise. The problem for
the Hilo-based company lay in its order fulfillment operations. At the time, the company was relying on manual procedures to fill
orders for the restaurants, supermarkets, and
institutions that make up its client base.
While that might have worked well enough
in another line of business, the system wasn’t
cutting it in the low-margin yet service-sen-sitive world of food distribution. Basically,
the manual picking procedures were proving
too slow, too error-prone, and too costly.
That led to the decision to seek an order
picking technology that could boost service
levels. “In today’s economy, we needed to get
productivity to the point where it would drive
our costs down while improving service and
increasing accuracy,” recalls Paul Agamata,
Suisan’s director of information technology.
“Our manual processes were tedious and
cumbersome, and we had too many errors.”
THE
PLAYERS
CUSTOMER
Suisan Corp.
Primary business:
Distributor of dry,
frozen, and refrigerated food to supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, and
institutions throughout Hawaii’s Big
Island
Headquarters:
Hilo, Hawaii
SUPPLIER
topVox Corp.
The Solution: Last September,
Suisan installed a voice system to direct
picking in all areas of the Hilo DC. The system it chose was the Lydia voice solution
from topVox. Along with the Lydia software,
the company invested in 15 Voxter compact
computer units for use by order selectors.
In a somewhat unusual twist, Suisan also
outfitted the workers with handheld bar-
code scanners. That’s because the company
decided to incorporate scanning into the
picking process as a way to assure near-per-
fect accuracy. Because of space constraints at
the Hilo site, up to five different products
can be stored within a single storage loca-
tion. Scanning helps ensure the right prod-
uct is selected from the slot.
SOLUTION
Voxter compact
computers with
Lydia software
