The Evolved Warehousing Solutions of Today's Top 3PLs

The third-party logistics sector has experienced dramatic advancements in the last five year alone, particularly with respect how warehousing solutions have evolved

Today’s global third-party logistics (3PL) companies are going beyond the typical transportation and delivery of goods and services. A complete 3PL service provider specializes in areas of expertise like complete transportation management, warehousing or provision of storage space, reporting, forecasting, freight billing, and auditing and much more.

A full-service 3PL company will provide distribution and supply chain management solutions across various industries. For instance, global warehousing by 3PL companies has gained a lot of popularity as the need for stock pre-positioning grows to prompt clients to seek for faster response for emergencies.

Further, all operations are done by the use of computer-based solutions through sophisticated software that makes management and planning efficiently. Additionally, competent and highly skilled personnel are employed for the effective running of warehousing operations.

Customized Packaging Solutions & Customer Flexibility

3PL companies providing warehousing services often offer custom storage solutions. They offer specialized storage facilities that suit different needs of products to be stored before transportation.

Most 3PL companies offer repackaging services, seasonal adjustments, product assembling and labeling among others. For instance, North American 3PL company, United Facilities, Inc. provides all of these custom packaging and distribution solutions, and as a result, is known as one of the most flexible logistics companies in the world.

All these are meant to safeguard and add value to the product in question. Moreover, other great 3PL companies go to an extent of designing how the product will reach the final customer.

Bonding & Insurance

Professional handling of goods is another notable characteristic that defines today's 3PL warehousing. Insurance is meant to add customer confidence and ensure complete peace of mind. Such types of warehousing insurance services include cargo insurance, warehouse legal liability insurance, workers compensation and general liability. 

Insurance is vital to protect clients against damages during transport.

In the case of damages, particularly any damages during transport, clients then launch their claims for compensation. Any party that uses 3PL service must ensure that their goods are bonded and insured.

Quality Stock Control & Movement

One of the biggest advantages that places the warehousing solutions of today's 3PL companies over general warehousing is their smooth stock control measurements. With the current fast paced changing customer needs, there is a need for the proper establishment of lead-time availability of every single product availed on the market. By ensuring weekly and monthly stock balances and reports, most businesses have enjoyed smooth and reliable running of operations.

Furthermore, most other companies go further to provide record keeping for non-stock items from suppliers and other parties. They use vital documents such as the stock card, bin cards, consignment notes, delivery notes and much more to ensure smooth movement of stock items.

Cost Reduction

With the technological advancement, recent 3PL companies have come up with custom solutions that aim at reducing the logistics, processing, distribution, and management costs of their supply chain management. Through their modern techniques, customers can, therefore, expect to pay less amount than conventional logistics providers.

These logistical cost reduction efforts has helped cut out the traditional labor-intensive techniques. They use modern equipment that saves both labor and keeps operating costs at bay. Cost reduction is a major factor that a business must consider before hiring a 3PL company for warehousing.

Tracking

The need for property safety arises day after day. This is why most recent 3PL companies have put in place efficient tracking services to keep clients informed and educated. the use of logistics-focused tracking benchmarks, strategies, and software is a great stride in the 3PL warehousing sector.

Warehousing is the core competence of every third party logistic company. Most businesses have now outsourced most of their operations to 3PL companies not only for transportation but also for full supply chain management warehousing included. They have added more flexibility to such businesses hence making most transactions easier. Listed above are the features and qualities one must consider in a 3PL company.

Cubing Systems: 3 Leading Companies for Cubing & Dimensional Weighing Products

Various suppliers and manufacturers deal with the advanced cubing systems and the dimensional weighing products on the market. Unless you choose the right supplier and/or manufacturer, you may not get the right products for your warehouse and shipping needs. With the diverse dealers available on the market, here is a look at the top three cubing system companies.

Dimensional Weighing

This is one of the most respected companies in the market. The cubing systems at Dimensional Weighing are effective, fully-automated, and dependable. These systems help to simplify the shipping and logistics process. They have also been designed to handle different package aspects of dimension and limit the costs of operations.

The in-motion cubing systems are well-developed and they are mostly designed for the conveyors. This system works perfectly with the conveyor belt. The innovative technology used helps to integrate the system with the logistics and the shipping operations.

These in-motion cubing systems apply the laser technology for accuracy. This way, the system allows you to minimize the margin for errors and further losses. The laser technology also works faster than the regular systems, which helps to save time, money, and effort.

Even the basic package system has been designed for effectiveness, precision, and reliability. With the products from the website, you can be sure of finding a system that can serve you as you expect.

CubiScan

CubiScan is the best choice if you need to minimize the high costs of shipping, and optimize the warehouse effectively. At CubiScan, you will enjoy different dimensional weighing products. Some of the products are automated to make work easier and more accurate. These products have also been designed to measure the irregular crates, cartons, and other large freight. They can be used for static and in-motion applications, so they are quite reliable.

A good number of products from CubiScan are considered leaders on the market. These products have been developed for various applications. They are mostly used in the shipping sector and packing stations. They are managed by the in-motion cubing systems for reliability, time-effectiveness, and precision.

Cornerstone Automation System Inc. (CASI)

CASI is another top company that has served the dimensional weighing industry for about thirteen years. The company is dedicated to providing highly-dependable weighing solutions for the warehouse. The products at CASI are automated for precision and they help you save time and effort as well.

CASI serves its clients with cubing systems, custom labeling, check weight systems, automated box opening, among others. It offers the in-motion system for conveyors, which are affordable, dependable, and accurate. Some of the clients that CASI serve include FedEx, DHL, and UPS. The CASI products are designed to handle cartons of various weight and size.
This company is recognized for the portable cart static cubic system and the tabletop systems that are used to measure items of different size and shape. The static cubing system is designed in different sizes to perform various functions.

These are the three companies that you can rely on when you need the right cubic and dimension weighting products. They are certified to offer top-quality products that you can use in your warehouse. They have products that help to limit the time, effort and boost accuracy.

5 Cutting-Edge Technologies Revolutionizing Warehouse Automation

As the world embraces technological innovation in many areas of life and commerce, competitive businesses are consistently searching for ways to automate their primary operations for greater efficient. For companies in logistics, warehousing, and distribution, technology is generally the break point or make point. Warehouse businesses in particular use new technology in order to remain competitive in their sector.

Businesses and organizations have accepted technology by automating many of their operations. Automation is a benefit to any business since it leaves little room for mistake, particularly along an assembly area. The business may also meet its set targets easily when it comes to production because of automation. This is unavoidable the approach to take for many of the businesses.

We are now one business that helps other companies install automated equipment into the system. You will discover quite a lot of automated machines available for logistics warehouses as well as distribution centers. A number of them include:

Sortation Systems

Sortation systems are essential warehouse automation investments for big parcels, mailers, cases and other products that go through a sorting process. Functions for sortation sorting machine systems consist of zone routing for pick and then pass application, sort-to-order, shipping sortation and carrier, reject systems and a lot more.

The following are a few examples of typical conveyor sortation items that can be found:

• Overhead sorters: suitable for small items, flats, parcels, and cases. Common for media applications and books.
• Pop up Sortation: A 90 degrees systems that operate in-line with ZPA roller conveyor for case and parcel sortation.
• Pushers as well as diverts: they are for parcel sortation, handling exception, and other apps.
• Merge conveyors: needed when products have to be consolidated for shipment.
• High-speed systems for sortation: like shoe sorters.

Picking Systems

This picking systems order is determined by businesses based on some common factors which include: Some of them include: attribute of the item being handled, picks per order, quantity per pick, value added processing like private labeling and a lot more. A few of the available picking systems include:

• Picking systems design
• Order picking software
• Warehouse robotic solutions
• Dispensing systems

In-motion Cubing & Dimensioning Systems

In-motion cubing and dimensioning systems are utilized to automatically capture dimensions of packages, bags, boxes, and even non-cuboidal or irregular shapes. The dimensioning process is specifically vital for carrier compliance as well as legal for trade apps. Many FedEx and UPS services and most international carriers need dimensional weight calculations on some kinds of shipments. Parcels which measure or calculate over limitations set as a result of carrier's cost more to ship because of dimensional weight factors.

Dimension cubing systems can process as much as 80 parcels per minute based on the carton dimensions. This technology offers some of the advanced dimensioners and cubers used to determine parcel and package dimensions for distribution and shipping. In-motion cubing and dimensioning systems, also known as cubers and dimensioners provide one of the industry's advanced in-motion dimensioning systems for package which is an integral section of the turnkey manifest lines.

Any kind of warehouse distribution center trying to automate its process can easily sure get many items that can be useful along the way. There are a number of machines, warehouse software and automated systems that are great investments for all types of distribution-based businesses.

The Evolution of Cubing & Dimensioning Systems

Cubing and dimensioning systems have significantly progressed over the past several years. Now, cubing and dimensional weighing and scanning systems offer a wide array of features designed to make procedures efficient and accurate.

Applications of Cubing Systems

Cubing systems are used to automatically capture and record the dimensions of packages to allot the right details to the item prior to shipment. Shipping companies like FedEX and UPS make use of these dimensioning systems to best determine the cost of packages before being shipped as well as the amount of space they will be occupying in the freight. With this, companies are in the position to make good use of their facilities and ship as many packages as technology will allow based on cubing calculations.

There are currently numerous cubing systems available in the market today, each one equipped with distinct features designed to meet the specific needs of the user. Before, the weight and dimension measurements were done separately but advances nowadays have made the process much more efficient with zero need for human intervention.

Advancements in Cubing & Dimensioning Technology

So what exactly are the new cubing and dimensioning systems of today capable of doing? Below are just some of the advances business entities can take advantage of:

In-Motion Cubing & Dimensioning

Unlike dimensional weight scanner systems of the past, perhaps the best advancement today are in-motion dimensioning systems which don’t require packages to stop in order to measure their weight and dimensions. Operating with laser-like precision, the package simply passes through the cubing unit without stopping and the unit manages to obtain all the precision needed in that split second. This helps increase the productivity of the company with no idle-time in between for readings.

Automated Carton Selection

There are also units that measure products and automatically match it with the proper package for delivery purposes. No need to waste time looking for that specific box for a particular product the cubing system can do this without any fault.

Cargo Freight Forwarding

For companies who ship internationally or even locally, dimensional weighing scales and cubing systems are capable of generating freight-ready information for quick-approval shipment. Containing weight, dimension, and even tracking numbers it would be so easy for companies to track every single package as it zooms through continents.

This is a dynamic dimensional scanner system that determines the dimensions and weight of large pallets.

Receipt and Slot Features

Cubing systems are also equipped with the capture of tracking numbers and other information necessary to ensure that the product is well accounted for from the time it leaves the company to the time it reaches the intended recipient.

Scanning of Irregular Dimensions

Dimensioning systems are also capable of measuring products that are of irregular packaging. Cartons aren’t all in a boxed format and the system can be programmed to take into account products that are far from the typical shape and match them with proper packaging.

Installation and Integration

Cubing systems aren’t all big. In fact, many of those today are built small and may be installed to an existing conveyor belt. Incredibly easy to use, you’ll find that there are different types depending on the heaviness of your intended transactions.

Of course, those are just some of the advancements in cubing and dimensional weighing systems With constantly improving industries with an end towards efficiency, it isn’t surprising to find more cubing systems packed with additional features.