World Wide Technology (WWT) is a global technology services provider that designs, builds, and manages large scale technology infrastructure solutions for both public and private organizations. WWT specializes in a range of services including IT consulting, cloud management, networking, security, and data centers. Some of the equipment WWT builds include server cabinets for web hosting, 5G network stations, and most recently the advancement to servers for processing artificial intelligence.

For WWT, their warehouse operations require the company to receive and ship large volumes of valuable electronics equipment that goes into building data servers and supporting their corporate clients. Shipping errors are costly, and delayed shipments can have a big impact on client relationships.

“Shipping specifically the challenge is: ‘can we get the device that we shipped, to the customer in the state that we shipped it in?’ We want to make sure that from a tracking standpoint… we give the customer the tracking to know all the way to the end – here’s my device. It costs a lot, it’s going to get to you in good hands.”
-Dan Benoist, Lead Global Supply Chain Engineer

StreamTech Engineering worked with World Wide Technology (WWT) to redesign two outbound shipping automation systems. The existing processes were inefficient, and required manual decision-making for each package. The goal of the project was to achieve a system that could reliably process the wide variety of sizes of their outbound parcel shipments. StreamTech Engineering delivered a SLAM system that accommodates the wide range of package sizes, unique labeling requirements, and sortation, all managed by the StreamTech Warehouse Control System (WCS) software.

The two systems perform the following functions:

Scan Induct: as boxes pass from the pack area, they are scanned into the system.
Weigh: to accommodate the large nature of the packages that are shipped, the system incorporates a scale that can measure across multiple conveyor zones.
Dimension: due to the long packages, the light curtain is the best way to gather the dimensions (Length, Width, and Height) of each package as they pass through.
Print Apply: each parcel that is shipped with the system gets a carrier label, and some also require a return label. For those that are identified as requiring a return label, the system applies the return label first, then applies the shipping label over it, with a unique perforation that allows it to be removed later.
Verify and Sortation: once labeled, packages are verified, then sorted to the corresponding carrier lane, to the dock door.
WCS Software Interface: for this project, StreamTech’s Warehouse Control System (WCS) software was implemented to interface with WWT’s parcel shipping software to handle the rate shopping and label generation.

For WWT, this new shipping automation system solved a lot of the challenges they were experiencing in the parcel shipping area. See Dan’s comments below:

“Automation has definitely standardized what we do. It’s helped us catch a lot of errors that humans can catch, but they don’t always catch. But the biggest thing is the efficiency and throughput. We’ve gotten twice, maybe three times as much volume over less people. Lot less people.

In our parcel shipping area, we used to push things down a stretch conveyor line, which was a lot of manual movement. In working with StreamTech, we presented them with our problem, and they came back with a solution. We worked it through with the team, and it was implemented very well. I’d say from a technological standpoint we are light years ahead of where we were.”
-Dan Benoist, Lead Global Supply Chain Engineer

StreamTech has a collaborative, partnership approach to providing sales, service and support for clients, and this was key to the success for WWT. With both companies headquartered in the greater St. Louis region, the high level of service and technical support has been a crucial factor in the sustained performance of the automation.

World Wide Technologies has experienced significant efficiency gains from this project. Prior to this implementation, over 27 people were allocated to just shipping alone. For WWT this labor savings is huge, as most of those employees were able to be reallocated to more value-added tasks across the breadth of WWT’s operational needs. The software integration between StreamTech and WWT will also ease future integration projects. The continued collaboration between StreamTech and WWT can enable the company to scale as future automation needs arise.