Analysts and End Users Speak on Benefits of DSI Platform — Tweak Your Biz
DSI®, a privately-owned digital supply chain platform company that has been operating for over 40 years, provides cloud inventory and mobile-first supply chain solutions for digital supply chain organizations competing in the growing digital supply chain economy.
Over its four decades of existence, DSI has expanded across the globe. The company has amassed over 3,000 customers in over 50 countries thanks to its persistent focus on the needs of its supply chain customers. Addressing the growing need for cloud solutions in the complex digital supply chain market, DSI’s global customer base includes industry leaders across a number of verticals.
DSI has built a strong brand and reputation, as well as solid relationships with a range of blue-chip corporations, established companies, and growing startups in the digital supply chain industry. The company invests heavily in its own Research & Development and has the capacity as well as the opportunity to accommodate steady growth without significantly increasing their operating costs.
The DSI product line has grown to include hundreds of apps across various platforms, including Native ERP, PaaS, and Cloud Inventory® technologies. The company’s extensive experience and expertise in the digital supply chain arena have leveraged DSI’s ability to make its customers succeed in all areas of inventory management in the global digital economy.
Analysts Assess the DSI Platform
According to the Oracle NetSuite blog, DSI is known in the industry as “‘The’ solution when it comes to supply chain apps.” In fact, in 2017 NetSuite honored DSI by naming the company their SuiteCloud New Partner of the Year. A global leader in the digital supply chain and cloud inventory space technology platform, DSI has earned distinction in the market thanks to the versatility of its platform.
DSI operates in key focal areas of the market and has expanded its exposure in these areas, as noted by industry experts. The company has earned wide-scale industry recognition in a number of potential growth areas.
End Users Comment on Benefits of DSI Solutions
DSI’s customer base is as diverse as its product line. Addressing the specialized needs of different industries by providing efficient cloud solutions that serve the complex digital supply chain market, DSI has enabled the success of thousands of customers in the area of digital supply chain.
“DSI provides us a single platform to handle all our mobile needs — from warehouse operations through direct store delivery,” noted Tom Nollan, IT Director at Old Dutch Foods, a manufacturer of potato chips and other snack foods based in the Midwestern United States and Canada.
The company uses DSI mobile and cloud solutions to enhance the efficiency of their manufacturing and warehouse operations.
“The platform gives our executive team a scalable solution that we can grow and rely on in the future. It’s why we chose DSI,” explained David Rice, CIO of S&D Coffee & Tea, the largest coffee and tea manufacturer and restaurant supplier in the U.S.
S&D uses DSI products such as its Product Locator App, as well as mobile apps that improve the efficiency of their manufacturing and warehouse, direct store delivery, and mobile route sales and service operations.
DSI Success Story: Briggs Healthcare
An example of a DSI success story is Briggs Healthcare, a company that met multi-division needs using one DSI inventory system of record.
Briggs, a trusted leader in health products, compliance, and home care, faced digital chain supply challenges. Specifically, they had company inventory being sourced from multiple locations and distributed in multiple ways and had two distinct divisions serving two very different customers. Small items were often being picked on a per item basis rather than in cases or pallets, and the lack of visibility in such a varied warehouse was producing errors, inaccuracy, reduced productivity, and sourcing challenges.
DSI worked with Briggs to provide an inventory management solution that improved visibility across the supply chain and works at the fringe of the company’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to manage inventory in a flexible and efficient way. The product’s integration of a pick-from-carousel process for small items ensures that inventory levels remain consistent for maximum productivity. Wave pick capability ensures picking for single item orders to 500+ line orders and achieves complete inventory distribution and third-party logistics (3PLs) providing a view of inventory levels in real time, as well as supporting M2M network integration to improve picking accuracy and track consumption of small inventory items.
With the use of DSI’s platform, Briggs saw an increase in the number of orders processed, as well as an increase in picking accuracy resulting in lower costs and increased productivity. The capacity to have a real-time view of inventory levels improves manufacturing lead-times and overall efficiency. The operational analytics included in the DSI platform also help the company to support continuous improvement by providing accurate tracking of performance and productivity.
“DSI is the technology that ties our materials handling operation together. Through integration with our shipping and picking systems we are taking cost out and processing more orders, faster,” commented Bruce Dan, Chief Operating Officer at Briggs Healthcare.
DSI Success Story: Trek Bicycle Corporation
Trek, the world’s second-largest bicycle manufacturer, is another DSI success story. The company’s operational challenges included crowded warehouses, and outdated processes with limited visibility of data. The company needed to mobilize its workforce by placing real-time, actionable data directly into their employee’s hands that would support local languages worldwide and enable real-time management of warehouses by means of easy-to-learn solutions that temporary, seasonal employees could leverage immediately.
Trek implemented the DSI platform, which features pre-built, certified integrations with Oracle’s JD Edwards Enterprise One Advanced Warehousing. Because DSI’s platform is multilingual and integrated from end-to-end, Trek was able to deploy standardized applications worldwide, mobilizing its warehouse processes and supporting local languages across all of its markets.
The DSI platform helped Trek optimize the use of its warehouse space, quickly locating available bays for put-away, and efficiently directing pickers to products as needed. DSI’s mobile apps also aligned with the company’s existing processes, helping Trek achieve rapid user acceptance to eliminate analog, paper-based processes, increase data accuracy, and reduce rework.
Mike Bentheimer, Supply Chain Analyst at Trek Bicycle Corporation, confirmed the measurable improvement in productivity that Trek saw after implementing the DSI platform. “Putting real-time information in the hands of our warehouse personnel improved our productivity by more than 20%,” he affirmed.
DSI Success Story: Baxter Life Sciences
Another DSI success story is Baxter Life Sciences. They are a Fortune 500 U.S. Healthcare company that provides innovative therapies and technologies for patients with life-threatening illnesses, for whom DSI provided an end-to-end tracking solution in a highly regulated industry.
The company was challenged by reduced efficiency and productivity caused by manual processes and double entry. Lack of visibility as raw materials were consumed made it difficult to provide proof of compliance through the manufacturing process. Lots must be tracked each time they move within the plant or warehouse. Paper processes were inefficient and put Baxter at risk with regulatory agencies.
DSI provided a single solution capable of tracking everything in its supply chain from receipt of raw materials through creation process to finished product. The platform also tracks each lot every time it is moved and supports life-saving systems. The platform provides real-time tracking of inventory movement, inventory consumption, and Work In Progress updates with mobile applications in both the warehouse and on the manufacturing floor. This enables full traceability from raw material through manufacturing process to improve demand planning and sourcing, as well as providing traceable documentation for compliance purposes.
The platform’s ability to easily roll-out across ecosystems running similar processes and similar back-office systems optimized processes. This optimization led to improved accuracy in inventory management, and the assurance that Baxter is in compliance with all regulations and codes. The platform provided improved traceability from receipt of raw goods through manufacturing to lots, increasing productivity, reducing inventory errors, and accelerating the process from raw material to product procedures.
A spokesperson for Baxter Life Sciences described the solution as, “Growth without adding headcount. Serialized tracking to support regulatory compliance.”
DSI Success Story: Envac AB
DSI provided a service work order solution to increase efficiency for vacuum waste collection company Envac AB, one of the leading environmental technology companies in Sweden. Envac needed to close the gap between their workers in the field and the data located in their Oracle EnterpriseOne system and needed a streamlined invoicing system to increase on-time payments and overall cash flow. The data collection gap between workers in the field and their main offices slowed down payment collection. Manual, paper-based processes slowed overall productivity, and time-consuming paper invoicing slowed down the company’s cash flow.
Envac chose DSI to implement a mobile-first Work Order Solution with seamless integration to their current Oracle EnterpriseOne system, which reduced strain on resources and led to improved efficiency and accuracy.
With DSI’s mobile-first Work Order Solution, once workers return to a connected environment, the data they collected while offline in the field syncs to Envac’s system of record. Envac workers are now able to view inventory available outside of their trucks. Digitizing their processes with mobile apps puts information into the hands of the workers on site.
Using DSI’s work order apps allows Envac’s maintenance engineers to visit waste sites and perform maintenance and services while they are underground, in disconnected environments. The availability of data reduced the strain on Envac’s internal resources by speeding work orders that were ready for billing.
“Jobs are being sent out with the help of DSI, the technicians accept the jobs with the help of DSI and… it’s off to invoicing straight away,”
Charlotte Anderson, Customer Success Manager at Envac.
DSI provides hundreds of supply chain management solutions and apps that are flexible enough to expand easily, addressing a variety of needs via a simple and cost-effective solution. While other technology vendors require companies to purchase multiple solutions to address multiple problems, CSI provides multi-faceted solutions within a single platform, improving efficiency and cost effectiveness for their diverse customers.
Originally published at https://tweakyourbiz.com on May 7, 2020.
