Cloud WMS improves grocer’s operations under a single umbrella

CobornsDelivers is the largest online grocery delivery service in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area. Customers place orders online for fresh meat and produce, deli and seafood, wine and spirits, freshly prepared meals and regular grocery items, with delivery as early as the same day. After transitioning to a cloud-based warehouse management system (WMS), the company reports that it has improved system flexibility and product traceability.

The company’s previous WMS was not able to meet its needs for a fast and flexible supply chain execution solution. In turn, it selected a cloud-based WMS based on it’s on its track-and-trace functions, such as expiration date tracking and rotation. The new WMS (HighJump, highjump.com) is integrated with the company’s purchasing system, online customer order system and financial system, among others.

Inside the company’s 250,000-square-foot distribution center, the cloud WMS now manages receiving, put-away, inventory management, order processing, replenishment, pick/pack, loading and shipping for an average of 700 orders per day. It also provides CobornsDelivers with the ability to build its own business processes using configuration tools.

“I’ve been through a lot of systems and conversions in my career, and this has been one of the best and one of the easiest for training employees,” says Phyllis Duerr, production operations manager. “Configuration changes are seamless and easy.”

The supplier hosts the WMS application and hardware infrastructure, while CobornsDelivers accesses the WMS from a Web browser, gaining the functional benefits of a WMS with fewer IT resources and faster upgrades. Because the WMS is scalable, the company can access as much power as it needs to accommodate spikes in demand or growth.

The company has cut its scrap rate by 4% by using the intuitive tracking functionalities. “I can tell where something is each day, each hour and each minute—almost to the second,” Duerr says. “I never have to wonder where an item is located.”