Increasing Repeat Sales Through Automated Kitting
The challenge for many organizations is that they cannot be inserted profitably when done manually. To open a closed case, insert samples or coupons then reseal the case is labor intensive and cost prohibitive when done manually.
PSI Engineering offers the MVP – a solution to insert sales and marketing material with the invoice and packing slip then apply onto the outside of the order or include within the order.
Automating the customer order fulfillment in the last 100 feet of the distribution center offers tremendous returns on investment especially during peak warehouse and fulfillment order periods.
- Increase repeat sales
- Push promotions
- Samples increase orders
Retailers can include promotional items and samples sealed to products that arrive at retail stores.
Meeting an organization’s need to increase revenue through repeat sales requires the merging of mechanical systems, software and an organizations sales & marketing product samples, coupon offers, and more.
The MVP Fulfillment Solution provides third party logistics (3PL) warehouses the flexibility to automate the kitting portion of their product offering. During peak order periods, 3PLs need to increase labor substantially to manually insert sales & marketing offers and sample kits with outgoing orders. The impact on profits is almost always negative. PSI offers solutions that are modularly designed to fit a 3PLs current needs. When a current product fulfillment contract expires and a new order fulfillment contract commences, the 3PL will be able to repurpose many of the modular components of PSI systems used during the previous contract and implement on their new lines.
Repurposing an automation system is almost unheard of in the world of supply chain. PSI’s team of engineers develops solutions to be robust and versatile. Often 3PL companies have to change their automation equipment when accepting new order fulfillment contracts. PSI’s friction feeders are the most robust feeding systems on order fulfillment lines in many high volume eCommerce companies. The versatile and modular design offers the flexibility of using the same system to feed different materials. This allows 3PL companies to spend capital dollars on warehouse and fulfillment equipment only once to maximize profits.
Such was the case at an online retail order fulfillment company specializing in software, cameras, computer accessories, books, music, movies, etc. During a peak season spanning five months the firm would ship 500 orders one day and 12,000 the next.
Orders were printed and folded, and eight people would insert them into pouches. This created a bottleneck because picking could not start until enough packets were processed.
When orders began to arrive later than expected by as much as two days, labor costs reached a pain threshold that required customer order fulfillment solutions in order to improve.
The operations manager found a technology from PSI Engineering called MVP Packet Fulfillment System to enclose multiple-page delivery documents into cohesive packets that pickers could apply onto sealed cases.
These days peak volume is much higher (30 – 50,000 orders per day) yet the operation can handle peak with half the manual labor they used before installing the system. On low volume days no labor is used. The print manager loads the feeder and walks away while packets accumulate into a drop box. Costs and stress have decreased considerably.
The PSI MVP enables this operation to ship orders accurately, on-time and within budget even with sharp increases in order volume. The firm took advantage of PSI’s onsite training program and scheduled ongoing preventative maintenance trips.