Challenge

A national packaging company was using a legacy software program to manage the production, packaging, and shipping of promotional displays for Walmart, Target and various other vendors.  

This legacy software was unable to be scaled and lacked the updated security integrations demanded by its vendors and customers. With the new, pandemic-driven, supply chain disturbances that were now a daily norm, they found that their system failed to meet demands, resulting in missed shipments, loss of revenue and an influx in vendor fines to their customers.  

Constraints

The legacy software used by the client was proprietary; we could not replicate any of the existing code base or proprietary algorithms. We were faced with building a new system, within a limited window of time (due to the seasonal fluctuations of the promotional display business). We would need to build a robust, secure and scalable system that enabled the company to do the following tasks:

• Capture program details
• Upload and maintain POs
• Create a label file to be uploaded to a label printer
• Create, route, and associate items to loads
• Integrate with Walmart’s PO Request for Routing Screen
• Keep snapshots of load data
• Create BOL’s
• Keep track of and update load shipping statuses
• Track inventory and its production

Solution

The packaging company partnered with mOOkstr to build a new web application for all their inventory, production and shipping needs. Utilizing a more modern HTML5/JS/CSS/jQuery Kendo UI .NET framework, while leveraging Web API and Cosmos DB, we created an application with robust UX capabilities and advanced security at every layer.

Leveraging the mOOkstr owned RESTful API, we added the ability to schedule, pull and integrate Walmart Routing data into the application, allowing for automated routing updates.  

With this enhanced infrastructure, we were able to build out an application that served all the original functionality of the legacy system and then enhanced features such as routing visibility, enhanced reporting capabilities, embedded KPIs, enhanced workflow visibility and management, increased automation and more.  

Results

After implementation and adoption, the company was able to manage the inventory, production, and shipment of promotional displays more efficiently and effectively.

The company’s dependent customers and copackers were given valuable visibility to the promotional process, enabling them to track missed shipments, late pickups, low productions days, and valuable alerts in a more timely and clear manner. This gave the company higher client satisfaction, which, in turn, empowered copackers with accurate and more timely reporting.

With the use of the new application the company was able to reduce costly vendor fees, increase client retention, navigate the fluctuating pandemic driven supply issues, scale easily during promotional periods, and provide the highest level of security to their customers.