Planet Dog

PRODUCT

Accellos One Collect for GP

KEY BENEFITS

More efficient use of warehouse space
35% more orders/picker/day
30-50% faster order fulfillment
30% reduction in inventory labor hours
98% inventory accuracy
50% reduction in paperwork
20% reduction in inventory costs
Virtually eliminated shipping errors
Virtually eliminated manual entry errors
Immediate customer order updates

COMPANY

Picture two young guys doodling up business plans on cocktail napkins and probing their imaginations for a bell-ringer. If you’re guessing Silicon Valley, guess again. It was Portland, Maine, in 1997, and Alex Fisher and Stew Maloney were evolving a concept for the pet industry modeled on the approach of New England yogurt-maker Stonyfield Farm – a commercial enterprise with a socially conscious dimension.

“Thinking globally and acting doggedly,” their company, Planet Dog, has become a leading innovator, designer and marketer of award-winning products for dogs and dog-lovers, underpinned by a powerful management software combination of Microsoft Dynamics GP and the Accellos One Collect warehouse management solution.

Fisher and Maloney operated Planet Dog out of Fisher’s apartment for two years before acquiring an additional employee and moving into commercial space. In 1999, they had 76 SKUs; 82 stores carried their product line and they grossed around $16,000 from 244 retail customers. By 2002, the staff had grown to 11 and 2,000 stores were carrying their products. They had 842 SKUs, many of them eco-friendly products designed by Fisher, who holds an M.A. degree in Fine Arts. By this time, they had 7,000 on-line customers and were being courted by large potential partners like LL Bean and Orvis.

A NEW DAY

Today, Planet Dog stocks approximately 500 SKUs, selling to tens of thousands of customers through a host of independent pet product retailers as well as large retailers such as Life Is Good, R.E.I., Frontgate and Amazon.com. The company has also established an online retail presence at www.planetdog.com and operates a company flagship retail store in Portland – as much for the customer feedback as for the revenue. Annual sales continue to grow and the company has received the Maine Governor’s Award for Business Excellence as well as Outside Magazine Top Places to Work.

A key element of Planet Dog has been its philanthropic arm, the Planet Dog Foundation (PDF), which receives two percent of every sale. PDF funds the support, training and placement of service dogs to help people in need nationwide. And recently it conducted a Haiti Matching Grant Fund initiative that raised $16,000 for the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. Generous support from outside donors included an $8,000 matching grant by the Joanne Woodward Newman and the Newman’s Own Foundations. Since 2006, PDF has contributed more than a half-million dollars in cash and in-kind goods to canine service programs.

A PRICE FOR PROGRESS

Growth can have its downside and in its first years, Planet Dog struggled with inventory management and shipping, with most of its product housed at vendor facilities. Its QuickBooks accounting software had difficulty coping with the increasing volume and complexity of the business as well as with functional tasks it was not designed to do.

The problems extended across the enterprise: inventory requirements could not be related to current sales orders. Kitting and creating bills of materials were difficult and time consuming. The purchase order generation process was limited. Reporting was slow and even though two databases had been created, they were reaching their limits.

Many of the problems persisted even after the company established its own warehouse, a facility of 4,000 square feet that was later expanded to 8,000 square feet. It also continued to use some off-site storage.

“Off-site storage was inconvenient and expensive,” says Operations Manager Shari Wise. “We also found that we didn’t have enough room in our own facility to react to changes in inventory with any logic or organization. Items were placed wherever they would fit, so it was extremely difficult to locate and keep track of stock.”

A STRONGER ERP SYSTEM

In 2005, Planet Dog management contacted a Microsoft-Certified technology solutions provider an Accellos reseller partner also located in Portland. The reseller proposed implementation of Microsoft Dynamics GP, an enterprise management software solution with extensive warehouse management capabilities. Management agreed to the purchase and the reseller implemented the software on a server at the Planet Dog store. Employees at the company’s headquarters and warehouse locations accessed the software over a Microsoft Windows network.

The Dynamics GP software brought order to the process. It enabled Planet Dog to create bills of material easily and consistently, track inventory levels and create purchase orders based on requirements. The newfound ability to estimate lead times accurately simplified and reduced production costs, and ordering only what was necessary led to an overall 20 percent reduction in inventory costs. On the sales side, Planet Dog was newly enabled to sell items in various units of measure, providing significantly increased efficiency as well as minimizing errors and omissions.

NEW WAREHOUSE, NEW PROCESSES

But it was still a paper-driven operation. The company briefly considered an RF-driven warehouse solution from Maximum Data Solutions but concluded that because of the nature of its warehousing operations the time was not right. By 2007, however, it had become apparent that Planet Dog’s growth virtually demanded more physical space and a more efficient warehouse process. Two decisions were made: to acquire a 25,000 square foot facility and to revisit the automation of key warehouse processes.

“We have two primary issues in our warehousing and fulfillment operations,” Wise says. “They are accuracy and picking-packing. In the smaller warehouse, these did not present much of a problem because everyone usually knew where everything was located. As the company added SKUs and later moved into the larger facilities, it became increasingly difficult for pickers to know where product was positioned in the warehouse. Dynamics GP helped immensely but our operations were still conducted manually on paper, which is by nature subject to entry errors.”

Once again, the Accellos partner had the solution. The company is a reseller partner of Accellos, Inc. and they proposed that Planet Dog again consider the RF solution, which had since been acquired by Accellos and re-designated as Accellos One Collect for GP. A major decision factor, Shari Wise says, was the fact that Accellos One Collect integrated seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics GP with no additional interface programming required.

IMPLEMENTATION AND OPERATION

The system was installed in October 2008, with the Accellos partner supporting the implementation.

The process began with the partner and Accellos’ Darrel Wright conducting a two-day planning session during which they explored Planet Dog’s business processes, goals and security requirements in detail. The answers evolved into a requirements document, which was used for the on-site set-up and training phases.

The Accellos partner set up a test company in GP and tested each area of functionality based on the requirements document. A few modifications were made during the setup and testing phases, with participation by Planet Dog personnel enabling them to become familiar with the hardware and software functionality.

Accellos One Collect applies automated data collection to every aspect of warehouse management. Employees equipped with PsionTeklogix Workabout Pro wireless handheld computers capture data with every receiving, order fulfillment and inventory control activity and enter it into the Microsoft Dynamics GP system in real time. The information is then processed following the Microsoft Dynamics GP business rules.

The warehouse is organized in aisles with single pallet racks four levels high. The first levels are assigned to picking and the upper three to replenishment stock. Planet Dog has mapped the bin locations in its warehouse, both physically on the floor and in Accellos One Collect, but has stopped short of using Accellos One Collect’s directed putaway features, feeling that it would limit flexibility in reassigning product locations. The bin layout is configured so that the most popular items are in the first rows to reduce the amount of walking.

WORKFLOW

“We have a lot of new items and seasonal items, so we need the flexibility to move picking bins around,” Wise says. “In the directed putaway process, you can’t put an item in a bin that is not assigned to it. We get around this with bin transfers, and since the RF guns record the placement of all product in the inventory records, we can always find it quickly.”

Product acquisition finds Planet Dog monitoring sell rates versus inventory levels and ordering to restock as certain levels are reached. The company normally emails its purchase orders, specifying required delivery dates. When the product arrives, the appropriate picking bins are restocked or alternatively, excess stock is stored on the levels above the picking bins. Receiving personnel scan the documentation with RF gun as the product is put away, transmitting product ID, quantity and storage location to the ERP software.

“Our bin transfer process provides us with the flexibility we need and the combination of Accellos One Collect’s information capture and Dynamics GP’s inventory records gives us an efficient process,” Wise says. “With the number of SKUs we maintain in inventory, it works fine.”

Orders normally arrive by EDI from the large retailers as well as by fax, email and online. Online orders feed directly into Dynamics GP, with the others entered manually. Prior to the implementation of Accellos One Collect, both picking and packing slips were produced each morning and distributed to the warehouse crew. With the implementation of Accellos One Collect, only the packing slip is printed.

The packing slip carries a barcode with all of the stored product, order and location data.

Pickers work order-by-order, and as they scan each barcode, their RF gun directs them to the product’s location, following a logical path throughout the warehouse with their caster-wheel carts. Product is placed directly in shipping containers on the picker’s cart. Pallet-size orders are processed singly, retrieved via forklift, while several smaller orders might be organized and picked simultaneously using the carts.

When orders are complete, the packing slips are placed in the boxes and the orders are ready to ship. Customers receive emails automatically informing them that their orders are on the way.

STREAMLINING OPERATIONS

The live information supplied by Accellos One Collect dramatically increases the power of the Dynamics GP software. Deployment as a single, integrated system has also eliminated duplicate data entry into Excel, allowing marketing management to easily analyze profitability by product line. Live inventory access from the order entry process has dramatically reduced time spent on the phone with customers. Wait times and callbacks have been reduced, and often eliminated, since customers can be advised of their order status immediately at any point in the pick-pack process. Shipping errors have been almost completely eliminated.

Accellos One Collect has also simplified and accelerated the inventory process. Prior to its implementation, it normally took eight people three days to perform the counting and variance adjustments. The scanning software eliminated the need to sort through and organize “mountains of paper” and manually enter the information into Dynamics GP. Entry errors thus are virtually nonexistent. Where previously it was necessary to cruise the warehouse to locate product, inventory counters using the RF guns can know exactly where each item is located.

The net result: five people now perform the complete inventory process in a single day.

RESULTS

When Planet Dog went live, the impact was immediate. “We have a company policy to ship an order within three business days of its being placed,” Wise says. “After the implementation of Accellos One Collect for GP, most orders were fulfilled within one or two days, even during the busiest seasons.”

The advantages continued to be felt, especially in the 2009 economic downturn, when Planet Dog was forced to reduce its warehouse staff because of a decline in orders.

“Even so,” Wise says, “we maintain on-time and accurate shipping even with a reduced staff. We can’t make precise oranges to oranges comparisons, but the advantages are apparent across the company. Our inventory speed and accuracy is vastly improved. Order fulfillment is faster and more accurate, and we’ve cut our paperwork in half. Our warehouse is more efficient and customer service is at a very high response level. This solution is exactly what we needed.”