Bloom & Wild blossoms with SaaS from SnapFulfil

Rapidly expanding online floristry leader, Bloom & Wild, has signed up to a five year SaaS (Software as a Service) contract with warehouse management system innovator SnapFulfil.

The pioneer of letterbox flowers (carefully hand-packed and sent in bud, so they last longer) has moved to optimise its warehousing and distribution efficiencies – and chose cloud-based SnapFulfil WMS because of its renowned flexibility, functionality and low total cost of ownership.

Bloom & Wild recently acquired Dutch rival, bloomon – creating the largest online business by deliveries in Europe’s £22bn market for flowers and houseplants – and SnapFulfil will be remotely onboarding its German fulfilment centre located in Bergkamen, followed by the UK warehouse in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

As part of its operations investment, Bloom & Wild is also looking to implement NetSuite and needed a WMS that could offer seamless integration. The initial order is for 25 SnapFulfil user licences, 24 x 7 critical support and a replicated database for interrogating and merging data.

Phill Burton, Chief Operating Officer at Bloom & Wild, said: “We want to scale as a business and it became increasingly apparent that our manual processes were not compatible with the company’s ambitious growth plans. SnapFulfil’s agility, configurability and capacity to grow with us makes them a good cultural fit as a technology partner.”

SnapFulfil CEO, Tony Dobson, added: “Bloom & Wild is a great British success story with ambitions for further growth and we are thrilled to be their chosen WMS partner. They are a savvy business and understand that an agile and responsive warehouse is at the heart of a dynamic order fulfilment operation.”

Inform integrates middleware into Syncrotess

Inform has successfully integrated Linker, a proven middleware, into ITS Synrotess Rail Scheduler, an add-on solution to optimise train unloading and loading processes.

As a result, all container terminals using a standard Navis N4 Terminal Operating System (TOS) can now introduce Inform’s Syncrotess Rail Scheduler quickly using this proven middleware for faster deployment and return on investment (ROI).

Inform is a market leader in add-on AI and optimisation software to facilitate improved decision making. Based in Aachen, Germany, with a regional office in Atlanta, United States, the company has been in the optimisation business for over 50 years and serves a wide span of logistics industries including ports, maritime, and intermodal terminals.

“We are excited to have successfully launched integrated version of Linker at GCT Deltaport. With a proven middleware between Syncrotess and the Navis N4 TOS means that other terminals wanting to benefit from the advanced add-on optimisation that Inform offers for rail operations can do so more quickly and cost effectively,” commented Dr. Eva Savelsberg, Senior Vice President, Logistics Division of Inform.

The Syncrotess Rail Scheduler optimises train loading and unloading processes between yard blocks and rail tracks and back again. The optimiser accomplishes this in real-time by adjusting to crane schedules and crane positions, aiming to reduce the cranes’ travel distances and simultaneously increase container handling efficiency.

The solution supports double-cycling whenever possible to create positive handover and equipment transfer flows. In terminals with multiple rail cranes, the Rail Scheduler considers the full picture (i.e., all handling equipment) when assigning work and dynamically splits the cranes to avoid handling delays. Workloads are adjusted automatically for planned maintenance, breaks, and unforeseen workflow disruptions.

Dr. Rafael Velasquez, Senior Consultant and Project Manager for North American optimisation projects at Inform commented: “The Linker has been successfully integrated into Inform’s Syncrotess solution and enhanced with additional logging and monitoring services to bring it up to Inform’s high standard for software development and has successfully gone live in our North American installations.”

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