Schuman – The challenge
In 2000, Arthur Schuman was managing a high volume of inventory, but was still relying
on paper-based systems for inventory information. Its old proprietary, AS/400-based
inventory management system was simply devoid of data collection and inventory
tracking functions. The company’s 60,000 sq. ft. refrigerated warehouse, housed tons of
cheeses in dozens of varieties – but featured no automated capabilities for personnel to
locate and process specific cheeses to fulfill customer orders.
According to President of Finance, Kevin Lehoullier, the lack of automation and real
time data made it difficult to track the "time in inventory" of the company’s perishable
products, and it created order-processing problems. "Our people routinely had to conduct
a difficult hunt to find the right product to fill an order. Products were often labeled with
abbreviations of the cheese type, which demanded a lot more knowledge of cheese than
should have been required of warehouse personnel," said Lehoullier. "It was time
consuming and it led to occasional errors and expensive rework.“
With the company straining under severe growth pressures, Lehoullier didn’t want to
Perpetuate an inefficient system by simply hiring additional personnel, nor did he want to
bear the time and expenserequired to develop a new AS/400 solution from scratch. Highly
featured automated data collection (ADC) was a must, and time, budget and flexibility
were of concern; so he decided to seek a short and certain path to an entirely new,