Flexibility to Serve Diverse eCommerce Retailers

Dotcom Distribution is a third party logistics provider for leading luxury brands primarily in the online electronics, beauty and fashion space. Dotcom excels at providing customized, value-added fulfillment services for companies selling diverse products, with widely different picking, packaging and shipping requirements.

Legacy WMS and Paper-Based Picking

Dotcom’s legacy WMS and paper-based picking processes did not provide the flexibility, accuracy and scalability they needed to support their rapidly growing outbound shipping volumes. In addition to different processes for different clients, Dotcom needed an easier, more effective way to handle an influx of temporary employees during peak holiday shipping seasons. During a client’s peak season, orders may grow from a few thousand orders per day to almost 20,000 per day. During peaks Dotcom needs to train and onboard hundreds of temporary pickers.

Nick Pendrous, Chief Operating Officer at Dotcom Distribution reflects, “We felt that the Lucas solution offered the improvements in accuracy and efficiency that we were seeking, while also providing flexibility for current and future business changes.”

Mobile Work Execution at Dotcom Distribution

The Lucas solution integrates with Dotcom’s legacy WMS, providing the flexibility to configure unique picking processes for different clients without changing or modifying the WMS. For instance, one customer’s process requires users to enter the UPC (Universal Product Code) for each item they pick as a check on inventory integrity, while others don’t require UPC validation to ensure accuracy. In each of the different picking processes, work is orchestrated by the Lucas Engage work execution software using order and inventory information from Dotcom’s back-end systems. Engage orchestrates the work of users who are directed by the Lucas Move voice-directed mobile application featuring Jennifer.

Move runs on ruggedized Android smartphones and offers a voice dialogue in Spanish and English, which was essential for Dotcom’s primarily Spanish-speaking workforce. Workers enthusiastically adopted the intuitive Move applications on the familiar smartphone platform, which has made it easier for Dotcom to onboard seasonal workers.

Another major component of the solution is the Lucas Engage Management Dashboard which gives supervisors real-time information about the work being completed on the floor, allowing them to manage work-in-process and handle exceptions immediately, improving workflow, eliminating delays, and boosting efficiency. With Engage, managers also can see detailed individual performance metrics, which Dotcom has used to develop an incentive program for warehouse associates.

Results

“Clients rely on Dotcom Distribution to deliver a tailored brand experience to e-commerce customers,” says Pendrous. “Lucas helps us meet that challenge by picking more items in a shorter period of time, with fewer errors and more flexibility. This allows us to handle our clients’ order surges during peak periods with less incremental labor while retaining our accuracy and efficiency.”

• 15% productivity improvements
• 50% reduction in errors
• Reduced training for temporary and seasonal employees
• Improved supervisor visibility into individual performance
• Ability to immediately identify and resolve production/workflow issues to avoid late shipments.