Not Just Another Pretty Interface
Iport/Export CG’s See Real World Savings with Web-enabled Logistics Solutions
Consumer Goods Technology, October 2001 - By Joe Dysart, Contributing Editor

While the morass of import / export regulations and logistics has sometimes vexed consumer goods makers for longer than they care to remember, a number of firms are turning to Web and Internet-based software packages and service to help cut costs and increase efficiencies.

“Obviously, an importer/exporter has issues that an entirely domestic company does not,” says John McLenann Ill, vice president of finance at Liberty Richter, a marketer and importer of specialty foods and confections based in Saddle Brook, NJ. “Foreign currency fluctuation and international logistics are just a couple.”

Agrees Anthony Prossi, information systems director at Ronkonkoma, New York based Rothco, a 75-year-old importer/exporter of specialty military apparel and outdoor camping equipment. “Choosing reliable vendors with competitive pricing and scheduling delivery of those goods to maintain our stocking levels is one of our major challenges. On the export side, we sell certain products that are restricted for export sale or have special licensing requirements.”

Software For The Long-Run

Both companies chose 3rdwave software from Blinco Systems, based in Toronto, Ontario, to help navigate the international trade arena. Essentially, 3rdwave enables consumer goods manufacturers to synchronize control over the total supply line by processing information from all trading partners in real-time. Everyone involved in the process gets to see what's going on at any point in time, as well as see the impact his or her own decisions will have on the process.

“We performed an extensive search and looked at many packages,” McLennan says. “But 3rdwave was a more complete package. We did find one other package with as much functionality, but it was written for a large corporation and certainly priced as such. 3rdwave gave us just as much and at a reasonable price.”

Specifically, the package has changed the way Liberty does business with trading partners in 30 countries by automating a number of processes that previously were performed manually, according to McLennan. “We are able to slice and dice both sales and expense information quickly - information that has at times yielded interesting results, results that intuitively were not obvious.”

In use at Liberty for three years now, 3rdwave has completely replaced Liberty's legacy systems. Installation and implementation ran $250,000 with an ROI of about 25%, McLennan says. “3rdwave has allowed us to keep fixed costs down, such as headcount, while growing sales. In fact, we have nearly doubled our sales since installation, and have only had to add four staff.”

Rothco, a wholesale distribution company specializing in military clothing and goods with 6,000 customers worldwide, reports similar success. “Blinco offers a complete solution that is fully integrated through the distribution chain,” he says. “I found a lot of distribution type software companies do not incorporate export into their software and sometimes require a third party product to be added in.”

Like Liberty, Rothco now can draw much more insight from its business data, and can be much more responsive to its customers, according to Prossi. The 52-year-old company, which trades primarily with China, Japan and Taiwan, abandoned its legacy system when migrating to 3rdwave, and later decided to integrate the package (3rdwave) with UPS' Worldship system.

“Very shortly, we'll be adding automatic email notification to our customers once their package is shipped,” Prossi says.

“Once you have the foundation in place, building on top of your information becomes very easy.”

Prossi installed the distribution component of 3rdwave two years ago, and expects to stay with the system for at least another eight years.

For related information, please go to:
3rdwave Food
3rdwave CGD (for Consumer Goods Distributors)
Rothco Case Study