When you're distributing over 800 million documents a year, time and accuracy really count. ADP, the world's largest processor of shareholder communications to brokerage firms and mutual funds, knows the importance of keeping track of every last document, and processing those documents quickly and efficiently. Everyday, ADP ships hundreds of pallets of annual reports, proxy statements, and other inserts to investors around the world. The company serves more than 14,000 publicly traded companies on behalf of over 900 brokerages and 450 mutual funds.

The company had been relying on a paper-driven, manual process to track the movement of these documents from receiving through final shipping. Unfortunately, this method proved to be wasting a lot of time and money. Employees often had to manually track orders and locate products when they could not locate the order with their warehouse management system (WMS).

Moreover, if customer service representatives were away from the warehouse floor, they were unable to access real-time information on order status or perform status queries because the system was not designed to do that.

Clearly, their outdated WMS was hindering performance quality as well as driving up labor costs. After considering offerings from 15 suppliers, ADP selected a WMS to improve the efficiency of its internal supply chain. This radio frequency-capable WMS is Web-based and can be reconfigured by users. It gives ADP complete control over their logistics operations, ensuring accuracy throughout receiving, put-away, picking, shipping, and counting.

In the first quarter of use, the WMS knocked $150,000 off operating costs while increasing pallet throughput 30%. Today, throughput is 43% higher than before the WMS upgrade.

"Warehouse management configured to our needs represented the final frontier in our quest to provide customers with premier document processing and distribution," says Cliff Heney, senior director of material/logistics at ADP Investor Communications Services.

With their new warehouse management solution, (HighJump Software, 800-328-3271, www.highjumpsoftware.com) ADP is able to track and monitor the inflow/outflow of product in real time, and also determine product location and status. As soon as a product is received at ADP, its identifying bar code is scanned and sent by radio frequency to the WMS, which selects a putaway location. To confirm that the right items are put in the designated location, both the storage bin and pallet load bar codes are scanned for the WMS.

Users can request product from the warehouse to be delivered to the production line, as well as audit inventory locations. The WMS has over 100 users in the ADP warehouse and its off-site customer service area. Every user has full visibility of the status of any order in the warehouse. Also, if a customer calls in to request the status of an order, an ADP representative can quickly check on the exact status from a desktop. This not only saves time, but also provides the customer with fast, accurate information.

"Our WMS provides operating information to efficiently perform common warehouse management tasks- receiving, put-away, picking, shipping, and cycle counting. It has a user-friendly interface and can easily be adapted to the changing needs of the business on a daily or hourly basis," says Heney.

The WebWise module is particularly important to ADP's success. This feature allows users to quickly retrieve the information they need over the Web.

"This module uses a familiar, Internet-friendly browser interface to provide warehouse information to our users on the Internet or the company's intranet," says Henry.

Information is presented in real-time, and is depicted in easy-to-understand charts and graphs. It also allows users to maintain a high-level strategic view of the warehouse. Information from productivity and inventory levels, to inventory movement and late shipments can be viewed.

Using the WMS, ADP saves valuable time and money that was previously wasted when employees had to search for missing items. Without adding personnel, ADP now processes 7,882 pallets a week, a considerable jump from the 5,477 it used to process. In addition, the company reduced the number of waiting delivery trucks in the receiving area, from between 25 and 50 to zero.

Since the system is so user-friendly, it didn't take long for employees to adapt.

"We didn't have to spend a lot of time on training," says Heney. He adds, "in fact, because of its adaptability and flexibility, we can easily modify our program to meet the changing needs of our business."

The system can also help managers determine how well their company is meeting product delivery to customers.

Everything has gone so smoothly that ADP plans to expand the WMS to a second facility. Furthermore, it will be configured to track projects and products between the two buildings.

Eventually, Heney plans to use the system to track projects at a more detailed level through the facility- such as when a project is transferred from larger machines to smaller processing stations. The WMS will track the product as it moves through the production process.

"We're a service business, and we understand the value of delivering what we promise," says Heney.

He adds, "our production cycle is the most time-intensive part of our process. We can actually pull orders in approximately one-half the time it used to take, and our production cycle has also been cut in half. The system definitely makes us a better supplier for our customers."

Click on this icon to read how Ocean Spray improved shipping efficiencies with the help of a new WMS.