BROOMFIELD, CO, MARCH 6, 2023 – Leading US connected food company Tovala has reported swift and immediate benefits since going live across three DCs with the cloud-based SnapFulfil WMS suite.
The Chicago-based business, the first in the meal delivery category to offer meals cooked in around 20 minutes or less using the simple scan of a QR code, is expanding rapidly across the U.S. and needed a more organized, consistent way of controlling its inventory.
The WMS solution also had to integrate with established production facility processes as well as custom software tools purpose built for food industry production management and the strict compliance and health and safety standards of the sector.
Operationally, that meant bespoke functionality such as over/under picking, lot, quantity and expiry date control, plus vendor ID and cost-per-pound values – and especially the capacity to accurately manage specific track-and-trace requirements.
“SnapFulfil was identified as the most flexible, cost effective and configurable suite available,” said John Comas, Industrial Engineer at Tovala. “ Additionally, the selection process included rigorous API and data testing in various demo environments for a proof of concept, which meant we were almost ‘live’ before signing the final agreement.
“Implementation was handled remotely, for cost and time savings, and the first two DCs in Chicago went live simultaneously. Stock receiving followed by a detailed audit worked particularly well, as it allowed our users to get a soft introduction before go-live and effectively counted it twice for optimum accuracy and visibility. Another game changer is the resource time saved as the RF guns enable our workers to pick efficiently by cycle, term, location and date across temperature controlled zones. We all now have full visibility of what has and will be picked.”
SnapFulfil has since been rolled out via a market-leading self implementation program to a much larger 230,000 square foot facility in Salt Lake City. This was also seamless and required next to no assistance after comprehensive rules engine training that took in the business and work flow learnings from Chicago.
“What changed from the first two DCs is that we did the stock take on via an FTP upload, which allowed us to do the whole facility in just one day, saving a lot of time and pressure,” Comas said. “SnapFulfil is highly configurable and I know and trust that I’ll be able to do future site rollouts myself even quicker.”