Customer success: Garden State Cold Storage increases daily shipped orders by 650 percent with WMS

Founded in 1995 with roots tracing back nearly 50 years, Garden State Cold Storage provides cold storage expertise within the Northeast to U.S. and international businesses requiring food and packaging logistics – from pickup to delivery.

What warehouse challenges did Garden State Cold Storage experience?

Facing impressive growth, New Jersey-based Garden State Cold Storage used to rely on third-party logistics (3PL) companies to move and store its frozen seafood and other goods in 3PL warehouses nationwide. Although it received many same-day orders for its seafood and frozen items, the company couldn’t access its own items, which meant it often couldn’t meet customer demand and get requests out on time.

Additionally, Garden State Cold Storage faced difficulties dealing with manual processing, documentation and traceability because it was using a cobbled-together system as a makeshift WMS that slowed operations and failed to meet its needs. To thrive, the Ruggiero family – the company’s owners – wanted to increase accuracy, efficiency and most importantly, customer experience.

What solution helped the company solve its challenges?

After concluding time was money – both of which were being wasted – Garden State Cold Storage management searched for a modern-day warehouse solution. The company reached out to another prominent freezer organization for recommendations on a reputable, experienced supply chain technology provider that could enable Garden State Cold Storage to become quicker, more reliable and efficient. The other company suggested Infios’s K.Motion e3PL WMS  as a solution that could meet Garden State Cold Storage’s immediate needs and scale as the business grew.

How long did it take to get the e3PL WMS up and running and how did it improve business?

Infios moved quickly and helped the company implement the e3PL WMS over a three-month period with minimal disruptions. The Infios team provided three months of on-site training and support, accelerating employees’ understanding of and transitioning to a computer-based system and leading them to work faster and more efficiently.

The solution revolutionized operations by enabling workers to easily locate items using barcodes and scanners. When inventory arrives, employees using handheld scanners easily track inventory throughout the warehouse.

This new-found efficiency, enabled by keeping the facility organized with a single centralized system, allows Garden State Cold Storage customers to receive their orders in an hour or less when requested. The company could get done what was needed in one-quarter of the time it took before solution implementation, empowered employees to stay ahead of the work and provided the cutting edge needed to improve customer service.

What other benefits is Garden State Cold Storage experiencing?

Since implementing the e3PL WMS, the company has achieved:

• An increase in shipped orders per day from less than 40 to 300 – a 650% improvement.
• Faster-than-ever integration and deployment.
• Reduced internal processing of cold storage items.
• Improved picking quality and inventory accuracy – the latter of which went from 60%-70% manually to 99.7%.
• Minimal employee training time and better retention.

What plans does the company have for growth?

As Garden State Cold Storage continues flourishing, it has sights set on building another warehouse. And with its ever-increasing customer base, the organization has plans to implement Infios’s transportation management system (TMS) into standard operations to help it become even more efficient and successful.

For more information, watch the Garden State Cold Storage video below and download the case study.