B2B Distribution and Order Fulfillment
Solutions for Creating an End-to-End Digital Experience
Do you need to scale from a wholesale business to a direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model? Are you creating an online marketplace to extend your business to a new set of customers? Do you need solutions that help you get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, without the typical business expansion growing pains?
If your fulfillment operations contain pallets, cases, or eaches, you need solutions to help you get the maximum impact with the most efficient business process.
What are some current challenges for B2B distributors?
The current environment has driven growth in the DTC channel and subsequently increased e-commerce adoption across all B2B selling areas.
What are some successful fulfillment strategies for the B2B industry?
To stay competitive, global supply chains are increasingly challenged to innovate and meet customer demand. For industries, enterprises, and small businesses, this represents a fantastic opportunity for an addition of technology investments. In countless new examples, businesses are proving that investments in supply chain technology are helping them adapt quickly to market changes and customer demands and stay ahead of their competitors.
For industries seeking an advanced, fully automated solution to streamline warehouse storage, picking, and packing operations with the smallest footprint in the market, AutoStore, powered by Dematic, is the perfect innovative solution.
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AutoStore: Goods-to-Person Piece Pick Subsystem
The AutoStore subsystem is built around the “goods-to-person” principle. The key benefits of goods-to-person include: eliminating worker travel time to pick locations, picking productivity, omitting dedicated pick faces (no slotting, re-slotting, manual replenishment), product security/inventory accuracy, order processing speed, and order accuracy.
Companies in many markets have recognized the wisdom of adapting to customer buying habits to remain relevant and competitive. Before implementing a new strategy, you should understand the barriers to developing a successful omnichannel initiative.
“Zone Skipping” is an effective way to keep your employees safe and avoid productivity pitfalls. As an employee picks the items for an order, software shows the employee what aisles contain the needed items. The employee is then alerted if a needed item is in an aisle occupied by another employee. When the aisle is free, the employee can return to finish picking the order.
Benefits of Zone Skipping:
- Prevents pickers waiting for an aisle to be clear, aiding in quicker delivery times
- Zone-Skipping software can augment existing picking software
- Quick implementation time – days versus weeks
What automation solutions should you consider for your B2B company?
B2B companies have to support for large numbers of stock keeping units, adjust to seasonal and promotional peaks in volume, manage extensive inventory storage capacity, handle huge volumes of single-line orders, offer same day/next day shipping, and manage their returns efficiently.
Companies that distribute industrial equipment (drills, pumps, etc.), auto parts / accessories, or electrical componentry (wiring, light bulbs, antennas, etc.), but do not sell to or interface with end-users
Mixed Case Fulfillment
Remove unattainable labor in tight labor market, and provide extra value-added services to end customers, including sequencing cases on the pallet based on location within the store in a planned put away strategy (“aisle-ready pallet”). Mixed case fulfillment also reduces product damage by ensuring family groups and heavy items are placed on the order pallet appropriately based on “crush class rules.”
Goods to Person Picking
Eliminate non-value-added time needed for operators to search for items. Goods-to-person picking offers 100% golden-zone ergonomic picking to ensure peak operator performance throughout their entire shift.
Dematic Software
The right software system can provide real-time data and visibility necessary to plan and manage efficient operations capable of meeting consumer demands.
Transport
Conveyors improve efficiency and allow for increased operational flexibility.
Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs)
AMRs enable autonomous material transport with little or no facility setup requirements and can navigate obstacles and people autonomously while maintaining high safety standards.
Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs)
AGVs remove repetitive transportation tasks from forklift drivers and allows for 24/7 operation with limited material transport personnel.
Storage
Operations seeking a more effective inventory management approach choose Dematic Storage Systems for their modular, flexible, and scalable design. The systems provide process improvements that support productivity gains, better space utilization, improved inventory control, and real-time load tracking.
What criteria should you use when evaluating a partner for B2B?
Dematic provides solutions that scale with your business, including a robust product and solution portfolio to meet all of your fulfillment needs. You get world-class integrated hardware, software, and support designed to help empower people, manage space, drive growth, and gain efficiency.
It is critical to select the right supplier - one that will be a trusted partner throughout the entire process.
As a company that’s led innovation in Supply Chain for more than 200 years, Dematic provides the widest range of solutions and the expertise to build the solution you need for complete control and visibility over your operation.
Our solutions are tailored to your business challenges. Using standardized sub-systems and industry-leading insight and expertise, Dematic provides world-class integrated hardware, software, and support to help you empower people, optimize space, drive growth and improve efficiency.
With Dematic, you can grow your business to compete locally, retain customer loyalty, and deliver with speed and accuracy on a global scale.
Solving problems like yours