16 weeks to success

As sole supplier to Andersen Windows, Cardinal Glass needed to pick up its performance or risk losing its most significant customer-and fast.

-- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/2001

Clarity is what it's all about for Cardinal Glass. It's true for the insulated glass it supplies to its major customer, Andersen Windows. And it's just as true when it comes to making shipments that are clear of problems. Unfortunately, the former was proving to be easier than the latter.

Andersen let it be known that shipments from the glass maker's distribution center didn't meet standards. Defects such as picking errors and mislabled glass were running about 9%/order. With 200 orders being placed a day, that error rate was particularly troublesome. Late shipments were also a problem because Andersen requires Cardinal to meet 30 min. delivery windows whenever the need arises. And to top it all off, Cardinal is the sole glass supplier to Andersen.

"It was apparent that our legacy system was struggling to keep up with the growing size and complexity of order requests," says Dan Peterson, director of manufacturing information systems at Cardinal. "When you're doing a visual inspection and you're pushing the clock to meet a delivery deadline, picking the right product with any level of consistency can be extremely difficult," adds Petersen.

Cardinal decided to replace its legacy order management system with a warehouse management system (HighJump Software, 952-943 5410, www.highjumpsoftware.com ). The client-server Windows NT warehouse management system (WMS) was easily integrated into Cardinal's existing information structure quite quickly, requiring only 16 wk from the purchase order until the system went live.

The improvements in Cardinal's operations were equally rapid. The impact of the WMS was far reaching too. According to John Gallagher, manager of the Amery, Wisc. distribution center, the software improved all operations from receiving and inspection to picking, shipping, and inventory management.

As the chart shows, picking errors dropped 95% while on-time deliveries hit an all-time high, hitting nearly 99.9%. As units shipped per day climbed 60%, personnel levels fell by more than 30%, "Customer satisfaction has been extremely high on Andersen's side," says Gallagher. "The WMS has also given us accurate inventory counts for the first time. Because it's in real-time, you're always just seconds away from updating your last pick. Also, there's no worry about lost transactions."

Inventory arrives at the DC from four manufacturing plants, two in Wisconsin and one each in Iowa and Minnesota. All shipments are to the Andersen assembly plant about 45 miles distant from the DC. Most orders are delivered to Andersen within 2 to 4 hr after being placed. Some orders, however, must be shipped in 30 min.

Orders are placed electronically and passed onto the WMS which manages all resources in the warehouse. Because of tight space requirements at its factory, Andersen places a large volume of small orders each day. It is not uncommon for Cardinal to receive 200 orders a day for a total of 4,000 SKUs. In addition, Andersen specifies a specific sequence for delivery of the stock keeping units (SKUs) in each order.

Rather than using paper pick lists as before, workers use nine hand held radio frequency data communication (RFDC) terminals to exchange information with the WMS.

If it weren't for the addition of bar codes to identify each unit of inventory, it would continue to be difficult to consistently pick and ship the right product. Not only is the product glass but most of the 1,000 SKUs are the same size and shape. Only the type of coating applied to the glass differentiates many SKUs.

Pick instructions are sent to the worker's RFDC terminal. At the designated storage location, the worker scans the bar code on the SKU. "Now workers can do a real-time check to make sure they are in the proper storage rack and that the proper quantity is being picked," says Gallagher. Meanwhile, "the WMS updates inventory needs from historical records so that counts are up-to-date and remaining levels can be tracked on an ongoing basis," adds Gallagher.

The orderpicker then selects the required pieces of glass and brings them to a staging area. There, the glass is scanned again before being properly slotted in shipping racks in the sequence requested by Andersen.

"Customer satisfaction and confidence has been greatly increased as product order errors have been reduced to a fraction of what they once were," adds Gallagher. The WMS has also allowed workers to improve efficiencies while accommodating value-add requests from Andersen.

There has also been a positive impact on Cardinal's workforce. Turnover is down and morale is much higher.