Growers Express is a major agricultural company that grows and markets a variety of produce under well-known brands like Green Giant Fresh. Folio3 built an award winning suite of mobile solutions for Growers that were later productized as “Truetrac” – now acquired by FoodLink. These include applications for.

• Food safety and produce traceability
• Inventory management
• Label printing in the field
• Payroll information capture in the field
• Crop planning
• Mobile surveys

• Client – Growers Express
• Aim – to improve accuracy & efficiency of warehouse operations by implementing a WMS & making customizations in the client’s Dynamics AX ERP
• Goal – to eliminate need for physical expansion of client’s distribution center
• With a better WMS it was expected that WM transactions would increase by 300% – 400%. It was therefore critical that all transactions be performed in a quick and efficient manner

Requirements

• Modifications to the Transfer process
• Modifications to the Picking process (Full Pallet & Case Picking)
• Modifications to the Sales Order process
• Modifications to Pallet Labels
• WMS Scanning with Dual Scan Capability
• Improved Reporting in Dynamics AX

Solution – Custom development in AX

• Custom query that reflects Sales Orders that are waiting on product
• Cooling & Put-Away form – reflects Priority to be accorded for cooling & put-away of products that had been received at DC
• Product Put-Away Form & Task List – custom functionality that aids Inventory Supervisor in planning & organizing put-away and/or transfer of products within warehouse
• Custom functionality that aids Inventory Supervisor in identifying & organizing replenishment requirements on the Case Pick Line & within Partials Reserve Area in warehouse
• Case Pick (CP) Area Replenishment form
• Product Not Required on CP Line form
• Available Locations in Partial Reserve Area form
• Location State on CP Line Excel Template
• Custom functionality that provides ability run a Report reflecting performance of Receivers, Put-away Operators, Case Pickers & Loaders
• Receivers Report
• Put-away Operators Report
• Case Pickers Report
• Loaders Report

Client – Growers Express
Aim – Integration of TrueTrac server / HarvestTrac with Dynamics AX ERP to meet business needs
Solution

• Automatic creation of Purchase Orders in AX – on generation of Harvest Tags in field & data being pushed to TrueTrac server / HarvestTrac. Relevant data for each harvest tag automatically pushed into AX
• Automatic update of commodity ‘Receiving’ (receiving of a commodity at the Distribution Center) in AX
• Automated update of commodity ‘Receiving’ on TrueTrac server (in HarvestTrac). Done via:
• ‘Receiving’ data pushed to TrueTrac server & HarvestTrac & product reflected as ‘Received’ in all necessary places in HarvestTrac, as per HarvestTrac configuration
• Once product/harvest tag is received in HarvestTrac, an acknowledgement pop-up is generated on Purchase Order Overview screen in AX (Accounts payable module > Purchase Order Details (under Common Forms) > Purchase Order Page > Advanced > Overview)

• Current WMS at Growers Express was implemented such that inventory can be wirelessly picked by loaders in the warehouse. WMS has gone through several iterations, the last being the addition of Full Pallet and Case pick routes along with actual inventory locations
• Aim – to introduce “License Plating” in WMS in order to improve accuracy & efficiency in distribution centers. License plating is the term used where each pallet has a unique Id

Solution

• Unique pallet ID login developed in Dynamics AX that is in total synchronization with every inventory transaction
• For this, inventory transactions within Dynamics AX were customized to adhere to a standard transaction set
• Folio3 developed & customized following processes in Dynamics AX to achieve the above.

Unique Pallet Id (based on Serial Shipping Container Code i.e. SSCC), Receiving, Pallet Label Management,
Transfers / Put-away, Pallet Consolidation, Pallet Picking, Case Picking, New Reports

Result

• Via a single scan of pallet Id, it is now possible to determine its warehouse no., location, item no., lot, receipt date & quantity
• In case of consolidated pallets where more than one item exists, it is possible to determine the disposition of all items on a pallet via the pallet Id
• Picking transactions within WMS can be achieved by scanning unique pallet ID without the need for scanning the original location
• For consolidated pallets, with one scan, loaders can pick multiple items at once, thus enhancing operational efficiency & productivity
• All item transfers within WMS can be achieved by scanning the unique pallet ID & destination location. There is No need to scan the original location