FL 100: Bouncing Back With Technology

Ryder Supply Chain Solutions, Miami
www.ryderscs.com        
Year founded: 1933        
Number of employees: 28,000
Number of food customers: 52
Solution name(s): Control Tower; Value Added Services; Transportation Management; Dedicated Contract Carriage; Distribution Management; Cross Dock; Network Design; Warehousing, Integrated Logistics
Business benefits: Manufacturers and retailers need to be ready to respond quickly to fluctuating consumer demands. Technology provides greater visibility to where products are in the supply chain. This allows manufacturers and retailers to make decisions quickly to ensure quality service and customer satisfaction.

Saddle Creek Corp., Lakeland, FL
www.saddlecrk.com
Year founded: 1966        
Number of employees: 2,000    
Number of food customers: 15 
Solution name(s): Warehouse Management; Transportation Management
Business benefits: Technology offers companies the ability to control costs and improve service to customers. The exchange of information across all links in the supply chain allows for better planning and optimized execution.

SAF USA Inc., Grapevine, TX
www.saf-usa.com          
Year founded: 1996        
Number of employees: 150+
Number of food customers: 20+              
Solution name(s): SAF SuperStore; SAF SuperWarehouse; SAF SuperForecast
Business benefits: SAF’s core products automate and optimize the ordering process from the customer to the manufacturer to ensure that the right products are always in the right place.

SAP America (a unit of SAP AG), Newtown Square, PA
www.sap.com  
Year founded: 1972        
Number of employees: 38,000
Number of food customers: <400            
Solution name(s): SAP ERP; SAP SCM; SAP CRM; SAP BI
Business benefits: Knowing which products and customers are profitable and which are not will allow the food distributor to make the necessary adjustments to ensure that they emerge stronger and better able to compete and expand. Technology enables these decisions.

Schaefer Systems International, Charlotte, NC
www.ssi-schaefer.us    
Year founded: 1937        
Number of employees: 8,000+ 
Number of food customers: 30 
Solution name(s): Schaefer Case Picker; Schaefer Orbiter System; Schaefer Miniload Crane
Business benefits: By using Product to Person distribution technologies, SSI Schaefer can lower the cost-per-unit shipped considerably. As a by-product, there are reductions in headcount and footprint. Having a smaller footprint enables companies to locate close to the outlet for their products.

SEKO Worldwide, Itasca, IL
www.sekologistics.com               
Year founded: 1976        
Number of employees: 2,300
Number of food customers: 900
Solution name(s): Supplier Management; TMS Transportation Management; WMS Warehousing/Inventory Management
Business benefits: Scalable and customizable solutions will enable companies to efficiently handle new business needs dictated by the post-recessionary return to growth and the ‘New Normal’ economic environment. SEKO has developed a robust suite of technology-enabled supply chain management and optimization solutions.

Silvon Software Inc., Westmont, IL
www.silvon.com             
Year founded: 1987        
Number of employees: 50          
Number of food customers: 350              
Solution name(s): Stratum          
Business benefits: The supply chain visibility offered by business intelligence technology like Silvon Stratum can help food businesses to react quicker to customer demand, drive down operational costs and maintain both high service levels and good margins while doing so.

Software Logistechs Inc., Toledo, OH
www.softlog.us               
Year founded: 1998        
Number of employees: 5            
Number of food customers: 10 
Solution name(s): DC-Xpress WMS
Business benefits: By utilizing DC-Xpress WMS as a hosted service, or on-site solution, companies can expect to reduce costs through the improvement of inventory accuracy, elimination of costly physical inventories and reduction in labor hours through efficiency.

SPS Commerce, Minneapolis
www.spscommerce.com            
Year founded: 1998        
Number of employees: 335        
Number of food customers: 5,500           
Solution name(s): SPSCommerce.net
Business benefits: With SPSCommerce.net’s SaaS services, organizations can easily connect with their global supply chain to improve visibility to orders, increase collaboration with thousands of trading partners and comply with supply chain requirements faster and at a lower cost of ownership. "

Sterling Commerce, Columbus, OH
www.sterlingcommerce.com    
Year founded: 1974        
Number of employees: 2,475
Number of food customers: 1,140
Solution name(s): Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite 9.0; Sterling TMS Carrier Mobile; Sterling Control Center Mobile; Sterling Integrator Mobile; and Sterling InFlight Data Management Mobile 
Business benefits: Food companies have a dual focus—growth in customers/markets and a drive to gain operational efficiencies and contain costs. Sterling Commerce solutions help by: optimizing supply chain connectivity; enhancing supply chain visibility;  streamlining order processes; and reducing transportation costs.

Supply Chain Intelligence, Cary, NC
www.scintelligence.com             
Year founded: 2001        
Number of employees: NA        
Number of food customers: 32 
Solution name(s): iSaaS; Outbound Shipment Intelligence; Outbound Shipment Execution
Business benefits: iSaaS provides route optimization planning and execution. Simulations provide business process what-if views to determine what impact changes will have on your distribution service and costs.

Supply Chain Optimizers LLC, Getzville, NY
www.supplychainoptimizers.com             
Year founded: 1995        
Number of employees: 20          
Number of food customers: 30 
Solution name(s): Supply Chain Optimization Through Packaging              
Business benefits: The quick turnaround of a solution results in a quicker return on investment. The solutions we provide work within the current manufacturing footprint so implementation is rapid. Savings come from multiple cost categories: corrugate, handling labor, warehousing, transportation, damage and pallets.

Swisslog, Newport News, VA
www.swisslog.com        
Year founded: 1898        
Number of employees: 2,044    
Number of food customers: 200              
Solution name(s): Swisslog is a leading provider of Warehouse and Distribution Solutions, delivering flexible, automatic and semi-automatic Logistics Solutions to insure our clients meet the changing demands of their customers in a profitable manner.
Business benefits: Short-term benefits are reduced operating expenses, higher throughput, higher order and inventory accuracy. Long-term benefits are improved market responsiveness, sales revenue gains from improved service track record and overall higher performance working environment.

TAKE Supply Chain (a division of TAKE Solutions Inc.), Princeton NJ
www.takesupplychain.com
Year founded: 1994        
Number of employees: 700+     
Number of food customers: 20 
Solution name(s): Gemini Data Collection;  OneSCM
Business benefits: To address the economic downturn, TAKE ‘s solutions enable food manufacturers to reduce costs by transforming their supply chains and improving business processes. Results like improved operational control, inventory accuracy, visibility and order fulfillment help them bounce back to achieve long-term goals.

Technology Group International, Toledo, OH
www.tgiltd.com              
Year founded: 1990        
Number of employees: 25          
Number of food customers: 50+              
Solution name(s): Enterprise 21 ERP       
Business benefits: Readers can leverage business software to obtain real time information stored in a single database. Short term, this can lead to improved employee productivity by eliminating duplicate data entry. Long term, readers can realize cost savings in the form of reduced inventory carrying costs while simultaneously improving order fill rates due to more sophisticated production planning and purchasing systems.