PWI Takes Fill Rates, Efficiency to New Levels with Epicor Indago WMS
With four distribution centers servicing more than 430 company-owned stores and independent jobbers across 12 states, Parts Warehouse Inc. (PWI) is one of North America’s largest privately owned distributors of replacement automotive parts and supplies. It’s also an example of the impressive value proposition of the independent aftermarket: the ability to deliver—often within 30 minutes or less—virtually any one of millions of parts, for any vehicle, to any location, at any time.
But maintaining this service level requires an ever-growing investment in inventory. With some 140,000 SKUs under roof at each of its DCs, PWI succeeds by maintaining peak efficiency in each step of its enterprise, from ordering, receiving and stocking parts to picking and delivering them, on time, to thousands of customer locations.
In 2015, it became clear to the PWI executive team that it was time to replace their reliable but outdated ERP software and warehouse management technologies. The ERP need was filled by the Epicor Vision solution, a powerful distribution management system developed specifically for the parts industry.
The choice of Warehouse Management Solution was equally important given PWI’s multiple DCs, rising SKU counts and pressing need to carefully manage labor costs and increase order fill. In assessing the competitive landscape, Kameron Spencer, vice president of operations for PWI, felt the greatest need was to improve visibility to the movement of every part into and within each DC.
“We couldn’t see inventory in real time,” he said. “We needed not only to be able to receive inventory the same day, but have those parts live on our system the minute they hit the shelf so we could sell them to our customers.”
Spencer and his ops team also needed greater insight into employee productivity, often finding themselves a step behind in addressing changing demand patterns on the warehouse floor. “We weren’t nearly as nimble or proactive as we needed to be.”
Epicor Vision and Indago allowed us to keep our whole network on one platform and ensure that every customer—company store or independent jobber—can buy from any DC at any time in the day with zero issues.
As a shareholder of the Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance, PWI maintains close relationships with dozens of similar, privately held distribution businesses. Spencer’s team relied on a few of these relationships to learn how best-in-class ERP and WMS solutions could help drive profitable growth. In each case the Alliance peer was using Epicor Vision software in conjunction with the Epicor Indago WMS.
“Vision and Indago allowed us to keep our whole network on one platform and ensure that every customer, company store or independent jobber, can buy from any DC at any time in the day with zero issues.”
Since going live at PWI in 2017, both solutions have helped Spencer’s team achieve significant operational gains. Within the first year, average daily fill rate increased from 94% to 99.5%. Additionally, thanks to the Indago solution’s real-time cycle count capability, PWI was able to eliminate its time-intensive annual wall-to-wall inventory counts.
Productivity is up, as well. Spencer’s team can now proactively redeploy employees throughout each DC based on accurate demand and productivity measures. Employees are also playing valuable roles in enhancing the company’s use of the WMS. “I’ve got hundreds of people using it every day,” he said. “It can be an ops manager or order filler, but I consistently have people ask, ‘Can we do this or this?’ Epicor has always been very open to acting on these ideas.
“Our partnership with Epicor is one of the main factors why we decided to go with Vision and Indago. The service they provide and the outstanding communication they offer are second to none in anything I’ve experienced over the past 20 years.”