With Reed’s millennium technology approaching its end-of-life, Reed Specialist Recruitment was working in overdrive to sweat the assets - chiefly “fat” PCs, with a server in every office. This set up was extremely resource intensive, requiring a great deal of support and high operational costs associated with man-power and travel. It also used an excessive amount of power and did not allow for flexible working between offices. In addition, Reed’s international expansion plans required IT infrastructure that could easily support new offices in other continents without needing on-site technical support and expensive equipment. Using the encroaching end-of-service-life as a motivator, Reed’s Head of IT Services Sean Whetstone was determined to overhaul technology across the group; “Thin client was the obvious choice, enabling us to centralize IT across all Reed companies. We decided 64bit Citrix running on blades was the best option and immediately achieved quantifiable efficiencies, maximizing the use of server capacity.” Reed consolidated from 300 server locations to just two data centers, reducing server count by 80%. However, the new thin client approach left Whetstone and his team with some unexpected challenges; “We could run up to 100 users on a single blade, but we have hungry users and they use a lot of applications. The problem was not the number of applications, but their unpredictability. We kept finding that a single user or application could swallow all the available resources on the blade and some of the more essential applications were causing the most disruption - Internet Explorer and Lotus Notes for example. With one person using 100 per cent of the resource, 99 others had a productivity level of zero!” Whetstone needed to find a way to impose limits on certain applications in order to ensure the success of the new IT infrastructure.

The National Blood Service (NBS) needed to create a safe, secure, and cost-effective system to support its core operations. The primary challenge was to ensure the safety, security, management, and cost-effectiveness of the PULSE Core Blood Management System, which processes more blood than any other system of its kind in the world. The NBS faced an immediate demand from staff for existing heritage software applications to be run over the network, which could impact the performance of their core business. Additionally, the potential threat of users launching unauthorized applications received via email posed a significant risk, as harmful viruses could damage servers and cause major performance problems.

Nationstar Mortgage faced significant challenges during a period of rapid growth in 2012 and 2013. The employee population tripled, causing desktop logons to slow to as long as three minutes and desktops to sometimes freeze, making it impossible to work. A complex Excel query by one user could lock up an entire server, leading to trouble tickets soaring to 300 a day. The company was adding 10 servers a week, but it wasn't enough to keep up with the demand. Profile corruption, performance problems, and server crashes were common issues, and the IT team was constantly in firefighting mode.

Alstom faced the challenge of delivering high-quality, stable services with minimal ongoing costs. The company needed to ensure that their IT environment was managed efficiently while providing a consistent and predictable user experience. Applications like Excel and Lotus Notes were demanding on their systems, degrading the quality of service to users. Alstom was working to commercial SLAs with their customers, necessitating a solution that could ensure optimal performance and equal resource distribution.

The City of Round Rock faced several challenges in improving its VMware View experience, securing and controlling user data, and supporting streamlined and efficient citizen service delivery. A unique issue arose with the transition to virtual desktops, where users wanted to retain personalized settings like desktop wallpapers. This 'kitty cat wallpaper' problem led to resistance in fully utilizing VMware licenses. Additionally, the city needed a solution to provide seamless access to data across various devices and locations, as well as to reduce help desk tickets related to offline file synchronization.

WellSpan Health needed to implement and upgrade their inpatient clinical care records system using the Cerner Millennium PowerChart application. However, the application required more processing power and resources than their existing Citrix servers could handle effectively. The performance of the Citrix environment diminished significantly, causing clinicians to be reluctant to migrate to the new application due to slow response times. The IT department explored various ways to enhance performance, including reviewing the Cerner hardware platform and the Citrix environment, but client-side response times were still not reduced to the needed extent. Logon times with Millennium PowerChart ranged from 30 to 90 seconds, which was an average of 20 seconds slower than the Cerner Classic application. This response lag was equivalent to adding 13 full-time employees due to the non-productive logon time.

British Energy Group’s large operations and international reputation require certain groups of employees to work remotely, managing overseas projects or travelling around the country to business meetings. However, restricted by extensive legislation from the Office of Civil and Nuclear Security (OCNS), British Energy was unable to provide remote access to business applications such as Microsoft Office or Oracle systems. The inability to access applications remotely impacted on British Energy’s productivity and market response times and with a new CEO on board, the IT department was tasked with finding a way to provide remote access, while complying with the essential security legislation. From an initial VPN pilot, which quickly proved to be too clunky for use, they turned to Citrix. It delivered the remote access needed and sailed through OCNS accreditation. However, the Citrix environment brought its own challenges. British Energy had trouble with roaming profiles corrupting, requiring frequent resetting. Additionally, with all applications now running within Citrix, British Energy was struggling to control access policies and the servers were not able to allocate resources appropriately. With over 800 remote users on 125 Citrix servers, it only takes one user accessing one resource intensive application and complaints arise about slow logon times and interrupted application sessions. The final problem was that within Citrix, all users had standardized desktop sessions, meaning all employees working within Citrix have access to the same applications, not allowing users to personalize their desktop session in any way.

Since affiliating with Integrity Insurance, Grange has been assessing ways to streamline workflows between the two companies. While continuing to operate as separate entities, the two organizations share a great deal of information throughout the lifecycle of a particular policy or claim. Applications used by both organizations are incredibly memory intensive and working out a way to streamline the systems in a way that facilitated access from both companies was proving costly.\n\nAdam Wilson, Citrix Administrator, Open Systems Area and Emerging Technologies for Grange Insurance, explained. “We run our policy and claim handling applications in a Citrix environment to minimize processing requirements at the desktop,” he said. “We wanted to roll out the applications to our affiliate, Integrity Insurance, but that would require adding three extra Citrix servers to the farm because of the nature of the applications they would be running - quite a heavy load and, therefore, a considerable expense.”\n\nGrange Insurance was already running 15 Citrix servers and wanted to see if there was any way to avoid adding three more.

Erste Bank faced several challenges including strict IT security requirements, an increasing number of mobile and home office workers, and a complex infrastructure spread across 80 different locations. Frequent loss of user personalization settings and an increased number of support calls, costs, and user downtime were also significant issues. The bank needed a solution that could provide secure and consistent access to IT services, regardless of the user's location or device, while maintaining strict security policies.

The 390,000-square-foot iHerb warehouse in Moreno Valley opened in 2010 as the company’s first automated facility. The climate-controlled facility achieved Good Manufacturing Practices certification and achieved virtually 100 percent accuracy for the orders being shipped around the world. Still, iHerb saw opportunities to speed existing operations to get customer orders out the door faster in the new Hebron facility. Specifically, the company wanted to implement an alternative to the existing batch-picking system. The system bunches orders into batches rather than individually processing each order, which is more time consuming on a per-order basis compared to a pick-to-order system. The existing system also relies on many manual-labor-intensive processes that could be automated to speed up the order-fulfillment process. “As our business grew, it became more pressing to find opportunities to improve efficiencies and speed to market,” said Kurt Cheek, director of operations at the iHerb Hebron facility. “A big part of that involved exploring an alternative to the batch-picking system that would help us maximize the number of orders that can be shipped same-day while still achieving very high order accuracy.” The company uses a warehouse management system (WMS) to process orders into batches, direct workers where to find the products, and identify the quantities needed for each batch. The products are hand-placed in totes that are then delivered down conveyors to work cells, where workers use radio-frequency (RF) scanners to scan each product. A light that corresponds to each product scan identifies which shipping container each product should be placed in, and a “stop” light indicates when an order’s container is complete. The container is then sent off for sealing, weighing and shipping. iHerb turned to Rockwell Automation OEM Partner Bastian Solutions to help. Working with Bastian Solutions, iHerb sought to design the new Hebron facility with efficiency improvements that could help further automate and speed up these highly accurate but sometimes labor-intensive processes.

BHFO faced several challenges in their order fulfillment process. They aimed to meet the goal of same-day shipping instead of the existing two-day shipping. Additionally, they needed to increase the picking rate to 250 items per person hour while reducing overall labor requirements. Another significant challenge was to increase throughput with a smaller system footprint and reduce the number of picking errors. Furthermore, BHFO needed an efficient way to manage millions of small SKU lots, which was becoming increasingly difficult with their existing system.

Award Concepts faced significant challenges with their outdated and unsupported version of Microsoft Dynamics AX, which was over 10 years old. The software's instability and lack of security posed a risk to their operations. Additionally, they were using a third-party solution to manage their radio frequency (RF) systems, which led to potential errors in stock picking and movement. These issues threatened their ability to fulfill orders on time, which was critical for their business. The financial controller, Annmaree Talbot, emphasized the urgency of upgrading their systems to avoid business disruptions and ensure timely customer deliveries.

Becker Safety & Supply faced significant challenges with their initial warehouse management system (WMS). The system had major data discrepancies, particularly between what the scanners reported and what was in NetSuite. This led to wasted time and logistical issues, especially at receiving, where the system did not allow for receipts from mobile devices. The previous WMS was also clunky and not user-friendly, causing inefficiencies and errors in order fulfillment.

Jo-Kell, an electrical distributor, sought to modernize its systems by phasing out manual processes and implementing a cloud-based WMS solution. Initially, they chose a WMS solution that was supposed to integrate seamlessly with NetSuite. However, the implementation dragged on with no end in sight, and many small details did not meet their expectations. Despite significant investment, Jo-Kell realized they were wasting time and resources on a solution that was not delivering the expected results. This led them to explore alternative WMS solutions that could better meet their needs.

GEM Products Inc. faced significant challenges with their outdated warehouse management system. The company had outgrown their encumberment system, which was difficult to maintain and update. The warehouse was not utilizing bins properly and relied heavily on the knowledge of the warehouse staff to know where inventory was located and what was on-hand. This manual process led to errors and mistakes that took time to follow-up and correct. When GEM Products Inc. moved into a new larger facility in 2018, they decided it was time to invigorate their warehouse processes with modern technology. They needed a solution that could provide accurate real-time inventory and improve overall efficiency.

In 1999, Redner’s purchased JD Edwards and is currently running EnterpriseOne version 8.12. By 2009, with business continuing to grow, Redner’s began researching automated data collection solutions. With the amount of stores they were running, products they were selling, and increasing legislation in the food and beverage industry, Redner’s needed an ADC solution that would help them streamline operation between their two warehouses and numerous stores. Redner’s found RF-SMART through an internet search and chose it for its functionality, which extended beyond competing ADC solutions.

St. Luke’s Hospital, a 300-bed facility in Toledo, OH, faced significant challenges in managing their PAR inventory after a divestiture. Transitioning from an on-premise solution to Oracle SCM Cloud, they needed a robust system to scan barcodes using handheld devices, eliminating paper processes in their PAR management. The hospital required a solution that could handle offline PAR counting to ensure accurate inventory management despite potential WIFI coverage issues. Additionally, they needed to manage 52 unique PAR locations efficiently with fewer staff, ensuring sufficient inventory levels and proper tracking for the accounting department.

Ballard Power Systems, a leader in proton exchange membrane fuel cell technology, needed to consolidate and modernize their technology systems. They aimed to move away from stand-alone systems and find a centralized ERP that would provide better visibility into all areas of their operation. This corporate initiative led to the selection of Oracle SCM Cloud. However, Ballard also wanted to use barcoding and scanning to direct the flow of material through their shop floor. They needed an easy way to get shop floor information into Oracle SCM Cloud while leveraging its robust functionality and maintaining the simplicity of barcode scanning.

Previous to NetSuite, BarProducts.com was using a very small-scale ERP. As BarProducts.com’s business continued to experience tremendous growth, they were prompted to search for a new ERP, one that would be developing new functionality to match BarProducts.com’s growth rate. A cloud-based server was another important criteria, which led BarProducts.com to NetSuite. Part of their ERP overhaul included warehouse management. RF-SMART was the obvious choice, as it fit BarProducts.com’s needs for both a cloud-based solution and one that would continually evolve its functionality. In the old business model, there were many points for failure and many opportunities for human error. Warehouse employees were completing orders using paper pick slips by guessing which aisles the products were located and what sequence to pick the orders. This spelled disaster for a company with more than 10,000 SKUs, and one that was experiencing double-digit growth every year, states Rosati. BarProducts.com wasn’t able to track the imprinting and customizations, nor did they have an accurate and real-time picture of their inventory. For instance, packages would arrive at their facility from a vendor, after which warehouse staff would manually enter PO receipt data into the ERP. Staff would then walk through the warehouse and find the first location to stash the materials, losing a significant amount of time in the process. As a result, their ERP never indicated how many items were in each bin. “It was a goose hunt to find the items,” says Rosati. Rosati knew there had to be a better way. His look for a new solution led him to NetSuite, and ultimately to RF-SMART, where he found the traceability and transparency BarProducts.com needed in order to more effectively compete in the eCommerce space.

Kateeva, a rapidly growing start-up in the OLED display manufacturing industry, faced significant challenges in managing their complex manufacturing processes. Initially, they relied on manual, paper-based systems for inventory management, which were time-consuming and inefficient. The lack of an integrated inventory management system led to infrequent and inaccurate stock counts, causing a lag in data points and making it difficult to maintain control over inventory movement. As a result, Kateeva struggled to keep up with the industry's fast-paced advancements and needed a scalable solution to streamline their operations and improve inventory accuracy.

Frescobol Carioca, a luxury men’s resortwear brand, was facing significant challenges in managing their inventory accurately. With a projected growth of 96% over the coming year, the company needed a robust solution to control their stock and reduce manual errors. The existing manual processes were leading to misplaced items and inefficiencies, which were not sustainable given their expansion plans. The company required an automated system that could streamline their inventory management, improve picking accuracy, and integrate seamlessly with their existing systems.

Prior to implementing RF-SMART, Pride Mobility was doing picking and shipping via manual processes, which left room for many errors. Not only inaccurate, but importing Excel spreadsheets into a separate database was also cumbersome and time-consuming. The team at Pride Mobility knew there had to be a more efficient way. When both Oracle and their implementation partner recommended RF-SMART, the team at Pride Mobility felt confident that RF-SMART would bring the needed efficiency and accuracy.

Michelman faced significant challenges with their outdated inventory movement processes, which led to considerable lag time between inventory movement and system updates. The lack of real-time visibility resulted in inventory shortages and over-stocking, hampering operational efficiency and business growth. In 2010, Michelman decided to overhaul their supply-chain technology by implementing JD Edwards 9.0 and RF-SMART automated data collection (ADC). They needed a solution that could seamlessly integrate with JD Edwards to enhance inventory efficiency and visibility.

Alamo Group’s distribution operation was working overtime to keep pace with the business’ success. An inefficient, paper-based system in the distribution centers greatly increased the potential for human errors and sometimes hampered customer responsiveness. The company needed a solution that would automate its manual processes, reduce human error, provide real-time visibility and integrate directly with its ERP system. Alamo Group needed a modern mobile solution.

Delmaine Fine Foods faced significant challenges in managing their complex warehousing requirements. Their entire product range is batch controlled, with products varying in shelf life from five days to two years. Some products require chilled storage and shipping, while others are ambient. Additionally, their customers dictate the required shelf life of products based on when they will be available to the end consumer. This complexity made it impractical to work in a conventional pick face environment, as it would require multiple batches in the pick face and order quantities ranging from a few cartons to multiple pallets. Delmaine needed their ERP software to provide precise instructions on what product to pick, which batch, and from where. Accurate inventory was crucial for this system to function effectively.

Skin Script, a wholesale skincare company, faced challenges in managing their growing business. They needed a robust software solution to handle inventory management and financial planning. The company aimed to offer same-day shipping to enhance customer satisfaction. However, their existing manual processes for sales order picking and packing were inefficient and prone to errors. The company also lacked a logical warehouse layout, which further complicated their operations. To address these issues, Skin Script sought a comprehensive solution that could streamline their inventory management and improve overall efficiency.

Mack’s Prairie Wings, a retailer specializing in waterfowl hunting and outfitting, faced inefficiencies with their homegrown solution and paper-picking processes. They needed a scalable, cloud-based ERP solution to streamline their operations, improve inventory accuracy, and enhance customer service. The company sought to replace their existing system to handle their diverse product mix and complex operations, including a call center and marine shop.

Previously using an ad-hoc group of systems to track and report, Palmetto recognized their need for a consolidated ERP and inventory management tracking to better keep up with their rapid growth. They were searching for a solution that was scalable, cloud-based and cost-effective. They were experiencing system issues, with their existing ERP integration prone to delay and error, often not synchronized. Their lack of visibility into how each store was operating resulted in inaccurate information and complicated planning and decision-making.

Fisk Industries faced significant challenges with inventory accuracy, which was crucial for efficiently picking orders and avoiding stock-outs. Their existing warehouse management system (WMS) was cumbersome and only boosted inventory accuracy to 85%. The system lacked real-time integration with NetSuite, requiring manual updates and oversight. This led to inefficiencies, stock-outs, and the inability to fulfill purchase orders promptly. Bruce Meyer, COO at Fisk, recognized the need for a more robust and user-friendly barcoding solution to improve inventory accuracy and order fulfillment efficiency.

Allied Hygiene faced significant challenges in maintaining accurate inventory counts due to their manual, paper-based methods. Despite consolidating their warehouse operations from 10 locations to one, they struggled with stock inaccuracies, leading to difficulties in fulfilling sales orders and lengthy, error-prone stock counts. The manual process of entering stock data was time-consuming and often resulted in errors, making it difficult to maintain an accurate inventory. This inefficiency affected their ability to provide timely information to customers regarding order statuses and led to operational delays.