J&J Snack Foods manufactures and distributes branded snack foods to food service and retail supermarket outlets across the U.S. Their products include icons such as SUPERPRETZEL and ICEE, as well as a host of other products spanning the baked goods, frozen beverage, and frozen novelties categories.
J&J Snack Foods was using their enterprise system, Oracle JD Edwards, to facilitate every element of their business. As a result, the company was forced to alter their core business processes to accommodate their ERP. This lack of flexibility was hampering J&J Snack Foods’ productivity in their warehouses.
One of the processes affecting the company’s productivity was inventory reclassification.
“[The team] would have to take everything off the dock, stage it onto a staging area on the dock, then slowly reclass it and put it away,” Heather Kepley, Director of Enterprise Systems at J&J Snack Foods, said. “The process would take 20-30 minutes per pallet.”
Another process J&J Snack Foods was looking to improve? Order fulfillment.
“At first, we struggled with the rigid pick, pack, and ship process in JD Edwards,” Kepley said.
The company needed to streamline this process to fulfill orders faster and make their warehouses more efficient.
Due to the nature of J&J Snack Foods Corp.’s business, the out-of-the-box Oracle JD Edwards solution could not accommodate the real-time transactions the company’s warehousing team faced. The company needed a solution that could integrate with their ERP, be tailored to their unique warehouse processes, and help increase productivity.
The key factor in J&J Snack Foods’ search for a new warehouse solution was the ability to integrate with Oracle JD Edwards, as it needed to connect to the rest of the business.
The company was also looking for a solution that could help them streamline time-consuming warehouse processes and improve inventory accuracy. They also wanted to be able to see performance analytics.
Lastly, the solution J&J Snack Foods chose needed to be flexible. The company wanted to be able to do things according to how their business operates, rather than be limited to Oracle JD Edwards processes.
With all of these requirements in mind, J&J Snack Foods narrowed their search down to one final solution: Cloud Inventory® by Nextworld.
A big reason J&J Snack Foods chose Cloud Inventory was its ability to integrate with any ERP—including Oracle JD Edwards.
“We’re a full JD Edwards shop, and [Cloud Inventory is] the number one third-party integrator with JD Edwards for WMS.”
J&J Snack Foods could also customize Cloud Inventory to match the company’s specific warehouse processes, which would help speed up operations and increase productivity.
Since implementing Cloud Inventory by Nextworld, J&J Snack Foods has seen significant increases in warehouse productivity. Now equipped with a flexible platform that can support its unique processes, the company has been able to become more efficient.
One of the ways the company did this was by creating a new script for reclassifying inventory. Managers can simply scan inventory using Cloud Inventory, and it automatically gets reclassed in Oracle JD Edwards. This process, which used to take up to 30 minutes per pallet, now takes only 15-30 seconds per pallet.
When future needs arise, J&J Snack Foods can use the Cloud Inventory platform to adjust or build applications that address them. These self-sufficient development capabilities also help the company reduce IT costs.
Cloud Inventory has also helped J&J Snack Foods speed up their pick, pack, and ship process.
“When we’re ready to ship, we hit one button in Cloud Inventory, and it picks, packs, and ships all of our products,” Kepley said. “It spits out a bill of lading automatically. Our shipping staff’s jobs are now easier and less time-consuming.”
J&J Snack Foods has also used Cloud Inventory to get real-time inventory visibility and see performance analytics. The company customized cycle count scripts to help make their inventory counts more efficient and accurate.
“It’s giving us inflow and outflow, especially for our RDCs, so we know if we’re at capacity or getting close to capacity,” Kepley said. “We’re now at a 98% inventory accuracy in our warehouses.”
By implementing Cloud Inventory, J&J Snack Foods got the flexibility they needed to increase productivity, improve inventory visibility and accuracy, and operate efficiently while offline. The company has plans to continue their partnership with Cloud Inventory and implement it throughout their organization.
“Cloud Inventory is going to be integral for all of our facilities across the nation.”
