I.T. Toolkit

Getting Into the Spirits

Craft distillers like Montanya Distillers—which produces rum from its base in Crested Butte, Colorado, where the high altitude and cool temperatures allow for flavorful aging—typically have been limited to distributing products within their own state, or perhaps a few surrounding ones. If they venture farther afield, they risk falling out of compliance with the myriad regulations governing liquor distribution across the United States.

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SerVaas Laboratories Cleans Up with Business Intelligence

When a company’s employee roster lists just about 100 workers, yet its products are sold in about one dozen countries, timely, accurate sales and inventory data is critical. Business intelligence (BI) solutions, however, have traditionally exceeded the budgets of small and mid-sized companies.

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Buddha Brands Embraces the Philosophy of Supply Chain Integration

Buddha Brands, a provider of plant-based food and beverage products, including Hungry Buddha keto bars and Thirsty Buddha coconut water, has seen tremendous growth during the past decade. To sustain its success, however, the company needed more robust integration between its electronic data interchange (EDI) solution and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

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Extreme Networks Rewires Its Supply Chain

Any company that has gone through a merger and acquisition knows how challenging it can be to integrate manual and disparate supply chain processes across the newly combined organization.

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There’s No Business Like Shoe Business

About 12 years ago, G. Brent Barkin, the son of Shoe Station founder Terry S. Barkin, urged his father to start a website for the family-owned business. The senior Barkin followed his son’s advice and invested some money in creating a new channel. But he had his doubts, asking, “Who’s going to buy shoes from a website?”

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From Sea to Supermarket: Tracking the Catch of the Day

In an age when consumers keep pushing companies to prove their sustainability, social responsibility, and fair trade track record, Bumble Bee Foods is counting on its blockchain project with SAP to earn high marks.

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Hidaka Forges Automated Inventory Solution

Like most manufacturers, Hidaka USA Inc., a sheet metal fabrication company, conducts regular physical inventories of its raw materials, work in process, and finished goods. It had been using a paper-based, manual system that was time-consuming and vulnerable to mistakes, making it difficult for management to be confident they had the materials and finished goods needed to meet customer orders.

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E-Commerce Fulfillment: No Pain, No Gain

Escalade Sports has been playing the supply chain game since 1927. At one point in its history, Sears, the traditional model for catalog and retail store sales, accounted for about half of the sporting goods manufacturer and distributor’s business. Today, while the company still serves specialty shops, department stores, and big-box retailers, Amazon and other e-commerce direct-to-end-user channels have changed the game.

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Kicking the Tires on an IoT Solution

Tire manufacturer Michelin is a shipper with a massive global footprint and complex demands. With headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Michelin operates 121 production facilities in 17 countries; those facilities produced approximately 190 million tires in 2017. With a presence in 170 countries, distributing products across the globe is a challenging and sophisticated operation.

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Getting Shipments on the Right Track

Radio Frequency Systems (RFS) provides wireless and broadcast infrastructure products and solutions to customers around the globe. Because many of the company’s products require installation, on-time delivery is critical. Late or damaged shipments raise costs when installation crews must wait for the equipment to arrive.

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