With roots extending before Prohibition, RNDC is one of the nation’s leading wholesale beverage alcohol distributors, specializing in wine and spirits. With 44 distribution warehouses in 40 states, the company processes nine million orders annually, according to a case study.
A distribution operation of that size faces a lot of pressure to pick, process and ship orders in a timely manner ― which is no easy feat, no matter the company size.
For more than 20 years, Lucas Systems has been helping RNDC to optimize its distribution centers by providing warehouse voice picking and adjacent technologies. Utilizing different systems such as Jennifer™ and the Lucas Management Console, RNDC has doubled bottle picking productivity while also improving accuracy to an impressive rate of over 99%, as stated in the case study.
“I think that we’ve really helped them to grow their strategies, both in terms of acquisitions and volume,” says Lucas Systems CMO Ken Ramoutar. “The technology has become an important part of their business and they really wouldn’t be able to grow without it.”
Warehouse Optimization Technology
The Lucas Warehouse Optimization Suite, or Jennifer™, works as the brains of RNDC’s warehouses. The system is at work in both the case pick and bottle pick areas, serving as an imperative part of RNDC’s fulfillment system.
Jennifer™ is AI-powered intelligence that optimizes and orchestrates warehouse operations. According to Ramoutar, Jennifer™ processes all of the orders that come in and then distributes that work to employees out on the warehouse floor through a headset.
“What Jennifer™ does is she instructs the workers on exactly what to pick for every customer in the most efficient way possible,” he says. “This system helps streamline the entire bottle picking process, allowing warehouse workers to use both hands while listening to what Jennifer™ tells them to do, without complications.”
Jennifer™ is what has helped RNDC reach an accuracy rate of 99%. In an industry where both companies and employees are under a lot of pressure to send out accurate orders in a timely manner, this AI-powered system is helping RNDC do just that.
The case study details how easy it is for RNDC employees to use Jennifer™. “It took me about 30 minutes to learn how to use Jennifer™,” says warehouse associate MaCorey Marks in the study. “Jennifer™ helps me be better at my job, allowing me to be faster by telling me the location, and I can just go right to the location instead of reading a screen.”
“Before working with Jennifer™, I had to pick with paper tickets,” echoes associate Elijah Blanchard. “It’s so much easier with Jennifer™ because she tells me what to do, where to go, how much to pick and she always rephrases it if you ask her to repeat something. It’s perfect.”
Real-Time Warehouse Visibility
While Jennifer™ helps warehouse employees, the Lucas Management Console provides real-time visibility into operations, exceptions, associate productivity and workflow to managers.
“Managers and supervisors have different needs in the warehouse,” explains Ramoutar. “They want to know how all of the orders are going, if they’re on track to getting all the work done and which tasks need higher priorities. So we have a home management console that helps give supervisors and managers insight into warehouse operations.”
The Lucas Management Console also boasts a variety of reports, charts and graphs for managers to be able to easily reorder products that are running low. With thousands of square feet of warehouse space, another feature of the management console allows supervisors to virtually send messages to other workers on the floor without having to track them down on foot.
“It’s like the cockpit for the supervisors,” Ramoutar says. “They can see everything that’s going on with a plethora of functionality at their fingertips.”
AI-Powered Dynamics Slotting
The innovation doesn’t stop with Jennifer™ and the Lucas Management Console. Earlier this year, Lucas announced its next generation of Dynamic Slotting, a warehouse game changer for providing in-the-moment reslotting decisions by using AI.
With a few button pushes, Lucas Systems software will sift through warehouse data to serve up optimal slotting recommendations. The results take minutes to generate, whereas traditional slotting analysis often takes months to complete using engineering resources or consultants, the company states.
Dynamic Slotting’s recommendations identify product moves that offer the biggest potential payback. Hundreds of parameters are taken into account including demand seasonality, item size, SKU velocity and costs, according to the company. Its similarity detection prevents placing related items side by side to reduce picking errors.
“Warehouses with thousands of SKUs need to figure out where to put all their products. Our Dynamic Slotting product helps them figure that out,” explains Ramoutar. “All supervisors have to do is push a button and Lucas will recommend the top 10 or 20 moves they should make every day rather than taking up an entire day moving things once a year.”
