Distributor McLane Company saves thousands of dollars annually by using RFID and IBM WebSphere technology in its supply chain.

Distributor McLane Company saves thousands of dollars annually by using RFID and IBM WebSphere technology in its supply chain.

Overview

McLane Company
Temple, Texas, United States
www.mclaneco.com

Industry
• Wholesale and distribution services

Employees
• 10,000

Products
• IBM Global Technology Services
• IBM Software Services for WebSphere – Lab Services
• IBM WebSphere RFID Premises Server, Version 6

IBM Business Partners
• Alien
• Motorola




“We’re very excited that IBM has helped us to cut the unnecessary expense of replacing totes, but we’re even more excited about the prospects and efficiencies that RFID can bring to the rest of our operations.” —McLane Company

Serving over 60,000 customer locations worldwide, McLane Company is one of the leading distribution and logistics companies in the United States. With the efforts of 10,000 employees, it operates 37 distribution centers, a third-party logistics company and a contract carrier.

Challenge
Each business day, McLane sends approximately 10,000–12,000 shipments to its customers out of its Temple distribution center alone. Because the company had no way to track its totes, the distributor had been spending US$300,000 each year reordering totes for its Temple facility since its customers had held onto totes for too long or failed to return them altogether. McLane sought an IT services provider to help it cut the unnecessary costs of replacing lost totes.

Solution
McLane engaged the IBM Global Technology Services and IBM Software Services for WebSphere® – Lab Services teams to design, procure, install and configure a radio frequency identification (RFID) solution to track its incoming and outgoing totes. Before launching the project in Jessup, Pennsylvania, McLane deployed a pilot program in its Temple distribution center using Motorola tag readers and 300 totes with Alien RFID tags.

Relying on the IBM WebSphere RFID Premises Server, Version 6 platform, the IBM team established a tracking process that gives McLane employees visibility into the location of totes and when they are due back to the distribution facility.

Benefits
• Anticipates saving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually by only replacing totes when necessary
• Improves process efficiency by empowering McLane’s delivery drivers with the knowledge of which customers owe totes back to the company
• Lays the foundation for RFID technology, which will help the client add business efficiencies and improve processes throughout its supply chain

For more information
Please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner.

www.ibm.com/solution/rfid