Since 1998, Sportsman's Warehouse, a retailer of outdoor sporting goods, has grown from two stores based in Salt Lake City to 30 stores in 15 states, with more openings planned for the future.

"We are one of Utah's fastest-growing 100 companies," says COO Chris Utgaard. "One of things I can count on is that I may not know what's going to happen a year from now, but I know it's going to be different from today."

To keep the company on track while continuing to grow by 50% a year, Sportsman's Warehouse implemented a warehouse management system (Highjump Software, 952-947-4088) designed to enable the DC's managers and operators to work in real time.

Operating in real time has provided two key benefits. Pickers are more productive and more accurate than ever before. "We know from the system what we have in inventory, where's it's located, who put it away and who last touched it," says Utgaard.

At the floor level, operating in real time allows Sportsman's Warehouse to use task interleaving to route pickers and lift trucks through the facility. "Before, a picker decided whether they wanted to get the decoys or the lead shot first," says Utgaard. "There was a lot of busy work that didn't accomplish anything."

Today, the system does labor and wave planning at the beginning of the shift, and then routes pickers to the most efficient task to eliminate unproductive travel time. The system also provides real-time feedback to management throughout the day.

Meanwhile, managers and shift supervisors use Web-based PDAs with scanning devices that allow them to access the warehouse management system (WMS) while they're on the floor. That enables decision-making on the fly.

"If one of the supervisors finds a pallet that's out of place, they can scan a bar code with the PDA, see the order history, and reroute the pallet without going back to their offices," Utgaard says. "They can access any information we can capture in the system from anywhere in the warehouse."