Just how important is real-time information to a third-party logistics (3PL) provider?

"Five years from now, we'd be out of business without real-time capabilities," says Greg Foreman, president of Dean Warehouse Services (401-334-4677), a Rhode Island-based 3PL with 1.8 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space.

That said, the company recently implemented a wireless, online tracking system. It allows Dean's customers to use their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to track inventory using information provided in real time by Dean's warehouse management system (WMS).

For the 3PL, the real process begins when it uploads to its WMS advance ship notices (ASNs), inventory, shipment and order information it receives from its customers. "When a truck hits our dock, we know exactly what we should be getting on that trailer," says Foreman.

In addition to receiving the inventory against an ASN, Dean's system matches incoming merchandise against a shortage report. "If we have any order shortages that are shipping that day, we crossdock the inventory to an outbound trailer," says Foreman. Dean's customer is then notified that the remaining inventory is available for order fulfillment.

Dean does receiving and putaway on the first two shifts and shipping on the first shift. Orders received that day are picked and prepared for shipment on the third shift. Equipped with RF-based scanning devices, pickers update the WMS in real time. That information is simultaneously passed on to a customer's ERP system. "Their systems will pick up the information that we're processing as fast as we can tell them what's going on," says Foreman.

For replenishment purposes, Dean sends its customers information about inventory in motion, telling a customer, for instance, that 8,000 cases are in the building but 5,000 are staged for shipment. "Some of our customers have sophisticated systems that can do automatic replenishment based on minimum and maximum levels," says Foreman. "For others, we let them know when it's time to replenish."

At the end of the day, Foreman says that being able to operate in real time is critical to Dean's success, as well as the success of its customers. "The world is becoming a global economy instead of a regional market," he says. "You simply can't do business without offering accurate and timely information."