3PL reaps benefits of Intelligent Video Services

After adding Intelligent Video Services from SiB Solutions, leading US 3PL King Solutions is reaping the benefits by identifying – and quickly rectifying – issues with goods leaving the warehouse.

One of the services offered by King, a dynamic, highly successful 3PL out of Minneapolis, MN., is the bulk shipping of time-sensitive marketing material throughout the US. Pallets are shipped to post offices across the United States and into every zip code. The turnover of the warehouse is intense. The consequences for advertisers of marketing material not arriving on time or in the right zip code is huge. Every pallet is time critical as campaigns have a set start and end date.

The key for King is the ability to quickly investigate issues with pallet delivery in the loading and staging area of its Dayton, MN warehouse and take corrective actions. Before subscribing to SiB Solutions’ Intelligent Video Services, investigations included interviewing associates on the floor and reviewing transaction history to find out what happened to a particular pallet or pallets. In many instances they would estimate when it happened and request that IT pull together a surveillance video of the approximate area, time, and place in the warehouse, to hopefully find what they were looking for. The time and effort could be significant, and the outcome was always uncertain.

Video gives immediate answers

Using Intelligent Video Service from SiB Solutions, King can now easily search its video using a pallet/order number as the reference and immediately get an answer to what happened.

“Previously it took King a lot of time and resources to find the relevant anomaly,” says Derek Gant, VP sales and business development, SiB Solutions US. “They were trying to use security cameras, which are installed for a different purpose, as a last-ditch effort to find the relevant information. Our services are positioned and optimized for monitoring warehouse flows, and we provide rapid search capability, which is what King Solutions was looking for. Now they simply search the video using order or load number and are immediately watching what they need to see.”

Saving time and money

“I’ve had this kind of service on a wish list for a long time. I have often thought that if we could search video easily, we could save a lot of time and resolve most issues very quickly,” says Neil Wackwitz, Director of Operations at King.

“We don’t make many mistakes, but when we do, they can represent significant dollar amounts for our clients and for us. With Intelligent Video Service we are saving time and money by identifying issues quickly and being able to provide visual evidence of exactly what transpired.  We have been able to dispute shipping errors and correct inventory discrepancies that would have been very difficult to prove in the past. With SiB Solutions’ service we get to enjoy “aha” moments regularly because we can see what really happened and then address it, so it doesn’t happen again,” says Wackwitz.

Order to implementation in 30 days

Thanks to an excellent relationship between SiB Solutions and both the IT and Operations Departments at King, the system was up and running in less than 30 days after order. “Working with King was a dream,” says Gant. “They worked closely with us while we installed our services remotely. The system was live for five days before we were training the warehouse and customer service managers on the system, providing them with immediate insights based on real video and data. A whole new view of the ‘Kingdom’ so to speak.”

IMAGE (from left): Lennart Bergström, Co-founder and COO, SiB Solutions; Neil Wackwitz, Director of Operations at King; Derek Gant, VP sales and business development, SiB Solutions US.