Jurassic Park Dinos Show How the System Works

To understand the power of the new system, let's watch how a pallet of Jurassic Park action figures travels from Asia to a Wal-Mart distribution center in Cleveland. The system tracks the movement of freight in the warehouse in real time, giving the Port and its customers a view of where they are in the process at any given time.

(Don't blink! Some steps take longer to explain than they take to perform. The warehouse cycle can be as short as 48 hours from Port storage to hauler pick up. Air shipment and rush orders go out within hours of order notification.)

  1. Hasbro, the Port's primary warehouse customer, inputs and transmits inbound bill of lading information and outbound shipment orders about the action figures through electronic data interchange (EDI). Their information includes the type and quantity of Jurassic Park action figures, the name of the cross-oceanic shipping line for inbound cargo, and the retail destination, item numbers, quantities, purchase order numbers and other pertinent customer information for outbound orders. This electronic data flows over the Web so it can be automatically entered into the Port's WMS system.
  2. After the shipment arrives at Seattle's docks and is unloaded off the vessel, Port truckers pick up and deliver the containers to the Port's warehouse.
  3. Once the container is in the warehouse, Port employees unload the shipment. The container already has an individual inbound order number assigned by Hasbro. This order number is entered into the WMS system to both verify goods receipt and to create inventory tracking pallet tags with a readable and scannable ID number for each pallet from the container. (The action figures now are "in the Port's house" and system.)

4.     The WMS system, via computer, tells the warehouseperson where to locate the pallets of action figures in the warehouse. (If this freight already has an outbound order, it will be diverted to a shipping row automatically.) This same information travels across the Web to automatically update Hasbro's system.

  1. Hasbro sends outbound shipping orders via EDI several times throughout the day. The Warehouse customer service section retrieves these orders through the Order Management System (OMS) and downloads them into WMS. Warehouse planners schedule the loads with truckers and air shippers and "wave plan" the shipment to the warehouse floor.

  1. Each shift, supervisors and foremen check the system for a prioritized list of work orders for the crews to perform and their work zones. When the action figures are ready to be picked, foremen assign work orders within the system to each crew member by name or work zone.

  2. Using the computer terminals mounted on their forklifts or their powerful computerized, hand-held scanners, warehouse crew get their "pick" commands right off the computer. The computer tells them the location, item number and pallet tag to pick an order from and where to take the freight in the shipping area.
  3. Once the action figures are in the shipping area, a warehouseperson scans the shipping container tag and automatically generates the outbound shipping labels for each individual pallet. This shipping label information is transmitted back to Hasbro, who in turn transmits it to their Wal-Mart customer in Cleveland.
  4. A warehouseperson scans the outbound pallet one more time as the shipment is loaded into a trailer to be picked up by a long-haul truck. Once the load is complete, a warehouse shipper generates the trucker's paperwork.
  5. The Port's WMS and Hasbro's systems are updated once more in real time. As the truck pulls away, both Hasbro and the Port know which dinosaurs are on a road-trip to Cleveland--all by electrons, instead of paper.