With the speed at which the technology that supports warehouse and distribution centers has advanced, how can you know what your facility will look like in 20, 10 or even 5 years from now?
That was the dilemma facing the owners of Sheetz, a chain of service station convenience stores with more than 470 locations in six states up and down the East Coast. The original Warehouse Management System (WMS) that had been supporting their distribution center and commissary facilities in Claysburg, Pennsylvania, was old and outdated. In fact the company they had purchased it from was no longer supporting it.
Company Rapidly Expanding
Sheetz, which is one of the fastest-growing family-owned chains in the Mid-Atlantic, was growing quickly. It needed a new WMS that would not only support its rapidly expanding warehouse, but also its full-service commissary, where fresh goods are baked and prepared daily. The system also needed to be integrated seamlessly with its other existing technology so that the chain’s more than 15,000 employees could easily transition to it.
Perhaps most importantly, however, the new WMS needed to be adaptable to future growth, according to Eric Foose, Sheetz’s sofware services manager. Company executives had already seen how it had outgrown its legacy WMS, so they wanted to to be prepared for whatever new technologies that could develop in both the short- and the long-term.
The company tried going with a smaller WMS system, but its operational performance fell short of expectations. What they really needed was a system that could use existing hardware and that would require minimal training for the more than 200 workers at the distribution center. It also needed to facilitate all of the chain’s rapidly-changing shipping, warehousing and manufacturing needs.
Turned to Professional Help
Aware that they were in over their heads from an information technology, the company turned to St. Onge, an outside consultant group, for help.
Working with Sheetz’s management team, St. Onge launched what was essentially a casting call for WMS providers. The best candidates were invited to participate in a trial period in which finalists processed real data from the company.
Ultimately, Sheetz went with HighJump, a software design firm based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that specializes in WMS systems.
The WMS installed at the Claysburg campus provided a directed, optimized workflow for receiving, put away/flow-through, inventory managment, replenishment and more.
But what really tipped the scales for HighJump was its ability to adapt to whatever future technological changes became available years or even decades down the road.
“We based our choice on its ability to configure to our needs and react to our changing processes,” Foose told Modern Materials Handling. “This was the only solution that actually showed us how we could do it ourselves. Our IT team couldn’t believe it.”
The new WMS arrived just in time for construction of Sheetz’s second distribution center/commissary campus which currently is being built in Burlington, North Carolina. The company is planning to configure these new facilities with its new centralized WMS deployment and will be executing the rollout with its own IT team.