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WMS Boosts Attwood's Reputation

The following is from an article published in November 2001 by Ken Krizner at Frontline Solutions Magazine.

For 30 years, inventory management was hardly a problem for Attwood Corporation. One employee headed up that portion of the operation for all those years, and he had a staff that averaged 13 years' experience. Inventory was found and delivered to the correct customer without many hiccups in the system, although picking and delivery were slow because the system was manual.

When a staff works together for that long, a comfort level develops among the employees. It's almost as if they can read each other's minds. They can adjust on the fly if something out of the ordinary occurs. It's much like a shortstop and second baseman who spend years together perfecting the double play.

While it may be reassuring to company executives to have the same people working effectively together in the same department for many years, there is also a tendency not to rotate other employees into that department so they can learn the tricks of the trade. As managers go through everyday business, it doesn't occur to them that these employees may someday retire or leave the company. That's what happened at Attwood.

Suddenly, through retirements and attrition, the heart of Attwood's inventory management team was gone. Not surprisingly, inventory management issues began cropping up in the last half of 1999, continuing into 2000, and affecting not only Attwood, but its customers as well. If an employee was asked to pack for other departments or pick for orders, the product wasn't always where the system said it was. It might take three attempts to find 10 widgets. Meanwhile, if it was an intra-company pick, the inability to find a product would lead many times to a line shutdown.

"All of these procedures that had worked so well over the years just walked out the door with those employees," said Mike Fairbanks, plant manager for Attwood's Lowell, MI, facility. "They did the job for so long, it was implied they would [continue to] do it every day. When they left, the company had a big problem."

Attwood, a subsidiary of Steelcase, provides injection-molded plastic parts to other Steelcase companies and is a leading manufacturer of marine hardware and accessories for the pleasure boating industry. Its marine customers include The Home Depot and Wal-Mart.

Fairbanks was brought in from another Steelcase subsidiary to re-examine inventory management and to make recommendations on how to automate and improve the process. Because of Attwood's size, he believed it was in the best interests of the company to go with a highly flexible, highly customized warehouse management system (WMS), rather than a larger canned system.

"We didn't need a large company bringing in a WMS that was designed for multibillion-dollar companies," Fairbanks says. "You bring in that system and it has everything you've ever wanted from a WMS. Then you implement it and find out only half of it applies to your company."

Aside from addressing the employee issue, Attwood wanted an automated system that would improve inventory accuracy in the area of optimizing picking paths and improve the efficiencies on the pick/pack/ship side.

In his past experience with WMS implementations, Fairbanks had developed a business relationship with RT Systems and viewed the company as reputable. In December 2000, Attwood implemented RT System's RT Locator, a PC-based warehouse control system that utilizes radio frequency (RF) terminals and bar code technology to provide real-time control over distribution operations.

Seamless flow of information

Attwood's legacy system transfers information to the WMS via IBM's MQSeries platform. When goods are received, the system directs the putaway. Communication with Attwood's host system takes place in real time over a wide-area network. The host maintains total inventory and the WMS maintains inventory by location. Before the WMS was implemented, the fill rate averaged between eight and 14 days.

Now, most orders are shipped virtually error-free within hours, with almost all orders shipped within a single day.

The order fulfillment cycle begins when order data is downloaded to the WMS from the host system, which optimizes the efficiency of the pickers by batching orders together and sorting the picks by location. Rush orders are picked first, based on a priority "flag" downloaded with the order detail.

Attwood averages between 200 and 300 orders a day, although that figure increases to perhaps as many as 400 a day during the summer boating season. The system transmits order information to the host computer at the end of the day, which triggers invoicing operations.

Attwood produces two types of orders-less than truckload (LTL), or Zone 6, and System Automated Movement (SAM) parcels-which are located in specified areas in the warehouse. SAM parcels travel on an automated RF conveyor system to one of eight spurs, depending on the destination of the shipment. When the last package is scanned, the order is confirmed and the system generates a pack slip. Pickers use hand-held Intermec RF terminals to generate scanned labels, which are printed on a Zebra printer.

Improved results, happy employees

Since implementation, Attwood has increased its daily shipping output by 100%, broken company records nearly every month on the number of units per day and dollars shipped and seen a 50% increase in the ability to service the customer from an order standpoint. On average, the company might do $1.3 million in sales for the first three weeks of the month. During the last week of the month, that figure rises to $2.6 million-with the same amount of staff and minimal overtime.

This is the third WMS implementation that Fairbanks has undertaken. Drawing on the experiences of the first two, Fairbanks took more of a "team approach" in implementing the Attwood system, resulting, he says, in a smoother project.

And after some initial resistance, employees in the distribution center (DC) embraced the WMS.

"It's ultra-important to have employees involved in the implementation from the beginning," Fairbanks points out. "They have to understand why a system is being implemented, how that system is going to make their lives easier and that their input counts."

At first, the WMS was only in the DC, but it has spread to other parts of the facility. Currently, Attwood is tracking products from the manufacturing press to the dock, then onto the trucks. There is also testing going on that gives Steelcase managers access to product status, as well.

The return on investment (ROI) is less than two years, but the impact of the WMS was felt almost immediately after implementation, Fairbanks notes. The need to do an annual physical count was eliminated, which saved three days of labor. Numerous mistakes resulting from manual entry were eliminated. Now, sample counts are conducted on a weekly basis and verified by the finance department.

'Hyper-growth mode'

Attwood is implementing a lean manufacturing program for its injection molding process. Fairbanks describes this move as a way for the company "to stay competitive" and be a viable entity for Steelcase. Steelcase not only owns Attwood but is also its No. 1 customer for injection molding.

"We want to be [Steelcase's] best supplier," Fairbanks says. "We want to provide value-added services in assembly and delivery. Combining a lean program with the WMS gives us the ability to become a more competitive company. Our company is in hyper-growth mode."

Eighteen months after implementing the WMS, Attwood has gone from goat to hero with its suppliers. Earlier this year, the company received the Supplier of the Year Award from the Marine Retailers Association of America. Fairbanks attributes the award to the WMS.

"When I took over distribution, it was in bad shape," he says. "The [warehouse] employees who have stuck with it for 18 months have been part of a great accomplishment."