Beverage companies that are harnessing the latest technologies to move towards a paperless supply chain are discovering that the benefits are two-fold. On the one hand, reducing paper is a green thing to do when being able to show that your operation is eco-sensitive can be a feather in your cap. But on the other, many of these same technologies are enabling operations to acquire deeper levels of insight into their supply chain, the likes of which they have never had access to before.

The reason is that setting up an electronic system to replace a paper-based one provides the computer intelligence to track product movement from supplier to store. A distributor, for example, can have access to real-time reporting from his office desk that allows him to locate a pallet of soft drinks or a truckload of beer kegs wherever they may be in the supply chain at that exact moment. And that can lead to all kinds of customer service advantages.

“Theoretically, this can be a completely paperless supply chain, and because we have these little footprints of electronic data coming back, we can start to track much closer what’s happening in the life of an order fulfillment,” explains Dave Broadfoot, managing partner, Lightning Pick Technologies (Germantown, Wis., USA).

“The productivity gains from going paperless are simply amazing,” adds Michael Bourgerie, director of business development for supply chain consulting firm Blue Horseshoe (Carmel, Ind., USA), “as are the responsiveness and the accuracy. And those are the three things I usually look at inside a facility of any sort. When we go back and benchmark our customers, we see anywhere from 16 to 25 percent improvements in efficiencies and productivity. If they get into a hands-free picking solution, it can be as high as 35 if we’re coming from a real intense paper environment.”

The concept of a fully paperless supply chain is really nothing new, having been around since the 1990s when computers and then the Internet began revolutionizing business processes. But it is only now that the advantages have become so obvious that all players up and down the beverage supply chain are steadily moving towards replacing a paper-based system with an electronic one. But the one stumbling block occurs, says Bourgerie, when one trading partner is slower than others when it comes to adoption.

To transition to a more paperless system, Bourgerie recommends a two-phase plan of action. Phase One: Get your own house in order. Your field sales should be able to take orders electronically. Following this, a warehouse management system should be implemented. And on the back end you will need a route accounting system. Phase Two: Go to your big suppliers and do a little politicking. Convince them it’s to their advantage to electronically connect their systems to yours for a seamless order fulfillment system.

Brian Schulte, industry marketing director at Intermec (Everett, Wash., USA), says a key thing in the move towards paperless is deploying automated mobile computers such as the one’s Intermec provides. Intermec’s newest mobile computers have the ability to electronically capture documents. “This enables somebody to be able to take a picture of an invoice to store it electronically,” he says.

One such example: Alaska and Pacific Northwest beverage distributor The Odom Corp. has deployed Intermec CK3 mobile computer featuring Vocollect Voice. Explains Julie Taylor, manager of Mobile Systems for Odom, “We sell over 1.7 million cases of varied products each month and process an average of 4,500 orders a day. We needed a reliable, flexible solution that would mitigate errors and enable us to increase the volume of orders fulfilled.” During the day, Odom uses the CK3 in tandem with the Retalix Power Warehouse WMS to replenish and check inventory. At night, Odom uses Vocollect Voice software running on the CK3 with Vocollect headsets to load trucks. Using the two-way voice application, mobile workers can operate the CK3 in “hands free” mode—improving productivity, safety, accuracy and operational efficiency. This capability empowers Odom to consolidate the multiple devices used with the previous solutions into a single device, significantly reducing total cost of ownership.

From Beverage World November 15, 2009