About Houston ISD Nutrition Services
HISD Nutrition Services supports the sourcing, storage, preparation, management and delivery of over 55 million meals to Houston area students each year. The warehouse stores raw materials and finished goods from vendors and production goods from the Production area and then delivers them to 280 schools around Houston.
28,654
Employees
284
Schools
214,175
Students
Largest school district in Texas, with about 100 languages spoken across the district and dual-language instruction offered in 53 schools.
The Challenge
HISD uses SAP warehouse management (WM) to natively manage its Nutrition Services warehouse. Challenges such as damaged barcode labels and end-of-life hardware resulted in the use of manual data entry, which was often prone to errors. For example, damaged labels can lead to picking errors, causing incorrect materials to be selected and delivered to schools.
The Solution: Catamaran NextGen™
Shipcom has partnered with HISD to implement a robust technology platform, Catamaran NextGen™, that enables HISD to rapidly deploy mobility solutions that seamlessly integrating with HISD’s corporate systems. Shipcom’s warehouse management and supply chain solutions integrate with SAP (backend ERP) to post transactions in real-time and provide completely paperless processes and improved automation for warehouse and transportation staff using mobile computing.
Shipcom’s Catamaran solution, with Automated Data Collection (ADC) hardware, is the bridge between mobile devices and the SAP Enterprise Wide business system for all warehouse processes — eliminating the need for warehouse personnel to interface with the complex SAP interface, and simplifying and enabling data capture at the source with data validation prior to posting into SAP.
Core Capabilities
- WMS: Goods Receipt & Putaway, to Replenishment and Order Fulfillment with all data retrieved and posted directly into SAP
- Real-Time: Processes completed on the floor in real-time using the latest handheld computers and vehicle mounted units
- Mobility: Mobile label printing of outbound skid contents for efficient Quality Control processes and truck loading
- SAP Integration: Real-time data retrieval and posting of SAP transactions, using standard and HISD custom developed BAPIs
- Proof of Delivery: Automates the identification of delivery items, Goods Issue at the warehouse and Goods Receipt materials at each school
- Paperless: Eliminates over a dozen paper manifests and exception documents, with easy archiving
Catamaran’s Mobile Experience is a consistent, efficient and friendly multi-platform interface: a mobile app running on Android OS, and a web app running on Windows 10 OS.
Catamaran Processes Overview
All business process flows, with the exception of the Skid Label Printing functionality, remain the same as they were in version 10.1. Several new features and enhancements have been implemented (indicated with *New*).
- Goods Receipt — Goods Receipt, In Progress POs, Reprint Putaway Labels
- Put Away
- Replenishment Planning — Raw Materials Bulk-to-Pick Planning, Raw Materials Pick-to-Staging TO Creation
- Replenishment — Replenishment for Outbound, Replenishment for Raw Materials, Reprint Prod Staging Labels
- Order Fulfillment — Start Order Fulfillment, Start Production Fulfillment, Will Call / Hot Shot, Pick & Skid Summary *New*, Print Delivery Documents, Exception Log
- Users Management, Roles Management, Printer Management
- Material: Batch Inquiry, Bin Inquiry, Pallet Inquiry
- Dashboard *New:* Productivity metrics for Order Fulfillment
- Knowledge Portal *New:* Quick tutorials and training documents
- Helpdesk *New*: Send feedback and trouble tickets
Project Scope & Implementation
Phase 1: Catamaran Upgrade and Technology Refresh
- Upgraded HISD's application from version 10.1 to the latest version, Catamaran NextGen™
- Migrated the mobility platform from the end-of-life Windows CE to the latest Android OS
- Deployed the newest models of mobile computing to replace outdated, end-of-life hardware: 20 handheld computers and 6 vehicle mounted units with wireless scanners
- All existing warehouse processes and Catamaran workflows remained the same
Phase 1B: Skid Label Printing for Outbound Shipments
- Built new functionality in the order fulfillment process to print labels by pallet (skid) at the time of picking and staging
- Enabled efficient verification of all items to be delivered by truck drivers
- Deployed 16 mobile label printers for all order selectors, connected to handhelds via Bluetooth
Key Milestones
- June 2018: Kick-off meeting
- August 2018: Design document submitted
- October 2018: Equipment delivered
- November 2018: User acceptance testing, training, and deployment to the production server
- November 14, 2018: Go-live
- November–December 2018: Post-go-live support
- January 2019: Additional training and major release update, including Order Fulfillment enhancements, Pick Event resume, Split Skid functionality, and a Productivity Dashboard
The latest solution was deployed in Q4 2018. With the use of Catamaran at the edge, all warehouse transactions are completed in real-time in a fully paperless and seamless process on the warehouse floor. Reports and dashboards analyze past trends and daily operational metrics, enabling HISD to determine process efficacy and continuously improve future warehouse operations.
As a result of Catamaran NextGen™, HISD has gained:
- Increased productivity of warehouse personnel and truck drivers
- Reduction of errors for picking and put-away
- Reduced material returns and wastage, meeting compliance on food temperature
- Easy scanning capability with no more manual data entries
- Increased efficiency for Quality Control to verify contents on outbound skids
- Boosted worker morale with the use of new technology and automated processes
- Transparency, traceability, efficiency, and reduced wastage through best practices and data analytics (dashboards)
What Was Received Extremely Well
- Exceptional user experience (efficient and intuitive): "The new user experience is definitely on top of this list because it got so much attention amongst our users. All warehouse staff commented on the new interface and all agreed on the fact that this new interface is more intuitive, more friendly, much nicer and all in all it increases their efficiency."
- Great performance (lightning fast): "Almost all of the users noticed that the performance of NextGen Catamaran™ is much better and is greatly improved. Even in the 1st day of using the system, we had users that finished their job 2 hours earlier than usual using the new system."
- Amazing support (going above and beyond): "Shipcom team was on the ground to support HISD pre & post golive. Everyone (from the warehouse to IT and SAP team) were absolutely amazed with the level of support they have received. Shipcom team was very responsive. Over 20 enhancements have been made since go-live based on user feedback. In one example, there was a request to add info to skid labels, and Shipcom delivered the change the very next day."
Project Implementation,Training & Go-Live
Catamaran Metrics (November 14, 2018 – February 6, 2019)
"Catamaran NextGen™ platform, using IoT technology and mobile computing, leverages Microsoft Power BI to create interactive dashboards and advanced analytics. These rich visual tools, on top of our robust workflow engine, help our clients monitor critical KPIs in real-time and provide actionable insight to make strategic decisions."
— Mohammad Sachee, Supply Chain Project Manager
"Shipcom's Expiration Dashboard helps me to manage the inventory in a way that was not possible before … The advantage of having the dashboard is that it allows the operation to be proactive when dealing with aging material… it gives the operation the tool and confidence of inventory accuracy."
— Conrad Davis, Sr. Warehouse Manager, Nutrition Services, HISD
"This new Catamaran is much better, it is faster, it's great. It is very smooth, it doesn't matter if you are in a freezer, cooler or dry area."
— Justin, Warehouse Staff
"I have a problem, I am already done with my work! (On the 1st day of using Catamaran NextGen — 2 hours earlier than usual.)"
— Jose, Warehouse Staff