Kaplan Early Learning specializes in publishing and development of curriculum and assessment products for early care and education and provides products to schools, day cares, preschools, teachers, and parents. Additionally, the company has a growing direct-to-consumer business.

 

Kaplan Early Learning customers range in size from large schools with sophisticated DCs to smaller schools, daycare facilities and individual parents. To meet a variety of customer needs, they required a flexible system that would allow them to automate processes, gain efficiencies and improve accuracy.

 

Kaplan’s old WMS functioned, but wasn’t open and offered limited visibility. Cartonization and putaway logic were limited. More importantly, it did not integrate well with the company’s ERP system. With their Lewisville, NC facility slated to add 150,000 – 200,000 square feet, Kaplan needed a WMS that could grow with the company.

 

Kaplan Early Learning went live with WMS in 2004 and reports that it was implemented on time and on budget with virtually no disruptions to their business. Kaplan lists five major success criteria for the implementation:

 

1. Buy in from senior management – The Kaplan Early Learning executive team was committed to making the WMS implementation a success.

 

2. Selection of WMS vendor – Kaplan said they spent more time on the RFP and requirements process than in the implementation process, taking the time to clearly define what they expected from the vendor. Flexibility, functionality and experience were high on the list of requirements.

 

3. Proper staff and resource allocation to the initiative - Kaplan dedicated a team of internal resources to the integration (IT, Purchasing, Finance, Order Entry, Receiving, Shipping, and Inventory Control).

 

4. Limiting customizations – The company prioritized customizations to integrate with their existing Easypick and Sortation systems, and was able to implement with minimal customizations.

 

5. Test, test, test – The same team dedicated to the initiative was also on point for testing along with the vendor. This included not just the warehouse testing for receiving, putaway, waves, picking and shipping, but also the integration testing with the ERP system.

 

Since implementation Kaplan Early Learning has been able to ship more products in the same time frame, create more balanced workloads, and improve inventory accuracy. Overall, they are more efficient, especially with putaway, replenishments, and picks than with their previous WMS – all of which is impacting customer service. In addition, the WMS allows Kaplan more visibility and flexibility to deal with customer exceptions and customer special requests. Kaplan Early Learning also notes the easy integration between the WMS and their ERP has been a real plus for them. They now have more control of how often they can send orders to the warehouse, wave, ship, and add carriers while keeping their ERP up-to-date during the day.

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