It's 10:00 p.m. Where's Your Global Inventory?
Consumer Goods Technology, January 2001 Excerpt - By Michael Peck, Contributing Editor

When it comes to global logistics, knowledge is power. It is power to know where your goods are -- whether tucked in a warehouse or steaming at 10 knots through the South China Sea. If you have this power, you can streamline inventory, slash storage and transportation costs, and ensure that customers get the goods they want.

Yet many businesses remain mired in the low-tech communications of phone calls and faxes. Tracking inventory becomes an endurance contest of multiple time zones and languages, of not knowing where a shipment is until it reaches port. Despite the importance of managing global inventory, International Trade Logistics (ITL) is the orphan segment when it comes to automating the global supply chain, concludes AMR Research.

"Unless your company is willing to automate ITL, history will repeat itself," says a 1999 AMR report. "The issues facing international logistics today are the same problems companies faced with domestic logistics a decade ago. And with new market opportunities in such areas as e-commerce, an automated ITL system is a necessity."

However, some companies are turning to global inventory management software to track products in the shop and in transit. The software makers claim their products save customers time, money, and hassle. Ned Blinick, vice-president of sales for Blinco Systems Inc., says his company's 3rdwave product allows customers to save 25% to 50% in inventory. "Because you can see inventory in transit, you can count inventory at sea as if it were in a floating warehouse," he adds. "You don't have the same need for goods on the floor."

Sales at Sea

This capability is one reason why 3rdwave Food is being installed as the enterprise-wide solution at Atalanta, a food distributor in Elizabeth, N.J. Knowing where goods are and when they will arrive will allow Atalanta to sell them even if they are still at sea, says IT director Carl D'Angelo. The company had a "rather crude" purchase order system that could not book orders until the shipment had almost arrived at port, he admits.

D'Angelo also expects to see considerable savings in warehousing costs once 3rdwave® is on-line at the end of this year. Atalanta now stores inventory in a 7,500-pallet storage facility, plus 70 public warehouses around the country. This forces the company to depend on the public warehouses for information regarding what products are on hand. And because the warehouses charge for storing even a few cases of a product, any technology that allows the company to shift specialty items to exactly where they are needed is especially welcome.

3rdwave has taken close to a year to install, including integrating it into Atalanta's Cobol-based legacy systems. D'Angelo says he expects to recoup the investment in 18 months. He hopes to eventually use 3rdwave to eliminate paper orders. At the least, 3rdwave will eliminate much of the drudge work, because data only needs to be keyed in once and then is used in all the other modules, D'Angelo says.

For related information, please go to:
3rdwave Food (for Food Distribution)
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