APEXWareTM Warehouse Management System (WMS) transforms current warehouse operations for Goodwill Industries of Denver to a paperless, real-time system that maintains accurate inventory and maximizes efficiency.
Background
Goodwill Denver provides job training, career development and employment opportunities for Coloradans in need. For over 90 years, Goodwill Denver has served metro Denver and northern Colorado helping those in need achieve self-sufficiency, dignity and hope. Every year Goodwill Denver assists over 20,000 individuals in the communities it serves.
Goodwill’s retail operations are comprised of 27 retail locations, 18 donation centers, 3 warehouses and the Goodwill e-commerce site. These retail operations provide employment—including for those with disabilities—and proceeds that together with donor contributions, fund Goodwill’s programs.
Challenges
The retail operations accept donated items that are sorted and inspected. Items in sellable condition are re-distributed to a retail store, outlet store or to shop.goodwill.com, Goodwill’s own e-commerce site. The remainder is sold as salvage or scrapped.
Previously, all operations were paper-based with hand-written orders. As donations increased, it became increasingly challenging for Goodwill to keep up with the volume. Goodwill Denver recognized that replacing their labor-intensive, manual processes with an automated, mobile WMS solution was key to achieving two operational goals:
Increase employee efficiency and productivity
Deliver donation trend visibility and inventory tracking across all donation centers, retail stores and warehouses which is the key to increasing inventory turnover.
AT A GLANCE
CLIENT
Goodwill Industries of Denver provides education, career development and employment opportunities to help those in need. Its retail operations provide employment and the proceeds fund community programs.
CHALLENGES
As donation volume increased, the ability to efficiently handle donations decreased dramatically.
KEY OBJECTIVES
- Increase productivity through automation and elimination of paperwork with mobile solution that is easy to learn and use
- Deploy a hosted solution that provides inventory visibility and tracking across all locations
SOLUTION
APEXWareTM WMS deployed in hosted environment to automate operations
KEY BENEFITS
- Increased inventory accuracy across all Goodwill Denver locations
- Increased productivity
- Maximized warehouse space utilization
- Increased inventory turnover
- Improved visibility of donation trends
- Eliminated labor-intensive and inaccurate paperwork and manual data entry
- Improved store level performance metrics
- Accounted effectively for seasonal goods
- Improved tracking of high value e-commerce items
3170 Harvester Road 8697 Research Call Toll-Free 800.820.3708 Burlington, Ontario L7N 3W8 Irvine, CA 92618 www.apex-ware.com
Goodwill sought a WMS solution capable of running in a hosted, distributed environment. This presented a technical challenge as this capability is not supported by most WMS solutions. Goodwill’s commitment to providing employment opportunities for those with disabilities—including some who cannot read—presented an added challenge as any WMS solution must have an intuitive interface.
Solution
APEXWareTM WMS was successfully deployed across 50 Goodwill Denver locations including donation centers, retail stores, outlet stores, warehouses, recycling centers, trailer storage yards and an e-commerce center. APEXWareTM WMS is a client/server mobile architecture integrating bar code data capture with wireless communication technology. Goodwill employees like the system, find it easy-to-use and utilize it for the processing of all donations.
Donation center employees are equipped with tablet computers running APEXWareTM WMS. The tablets are used to accept and process donations. All items are labeled with a bar code and recorded into APEXWareTM WMS. Outbound donations are scanned as they are loaded onto trucks for delivery to one of Goodwill Denver’s warehouses. Donations are also accepted directly from donors at retail stores. Retail store employees use both computers with tethered bar code scanners and ruggedized handheld computers running APEXWareTM WMS to manage inventory. Retail employees can also place orders from the warehouse using the system. Warehouse employees utilize ruggedized mobile handheld computers to coordinate the shipping and receiving of donations as well as to perform put-away and cycle counting functions.
Benefits
Improved efficiencies and productivity essential to keeping up with increased volume of donations.
Immediate donation trend visibility and inventory tracking across all of Goodwill Denver’s donation centers, retail stores and warehouses.
Increased inventory turnover.
Increased data accuracy and reduced errors due to paperwork elimination.
Ease of use for employees due to intuitive interface. This was critical because of Goodwill’s commitment to providing employment opportunities for those with disabilities—including some who cannot read. APEXWareTM WMS is multilingual and can readily support Spanish.
Maximized warehouse space utilization reducing the overall total need for warehouse space.
Increased seasonal goods accounting due to the flexibility built into the system. Goods can easily be pulled from the warehouses back into the retail stores to be sold during the appropriate season.
Improved high value, e-commerce item tracking resulting in reduced losses.
DecisionPoint Systems and CXT Software
“APEXWareTM WMS has really given a boost to our ability to efficiently process donations and track inventory. The software fits Goodwill’s unique operations from the donation center right through to the warehouse and back to the retail floor. This system has helped to streamline our processes and in turn, plays a key role in helping Goodwill achieve our mission to help inspire hope one person at a time.”
Randy Dohne, VP-Operations
“We previously relied on paper and manual processes in the warehouse. APEX has catapulted Goodwill into the 21st century.”
Randy Lucero, Platte Warehouse Assistant Manager
