Augsburg Fortress Canada is the ministry of publishing of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, serving the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, The Anglican Church of Canada and their ecumenical partners. They operate a distribution centre and retail store in Kitchener, Ontario.
The Challenge
Augsburg Fortress needed to create a Canadian Distribution network to support the delivery of materials to churches, schools and other religious organizations across Canada. The book industry includes several specialized requirements for distributors, including copyright laws, detailed information on publish dates, releases dates and data interchange for Pubnet and Amazon networks.
The Solution
Beckard Associates implemented both the Masterworks Wholesale Distribution System for the Canadian trade network and our POS solution to run the store operations in Kitchener, Ontario. The distribution system collects orders from both Amazon and the U.S. Augsburg Fortress web site to fill orders across Canada. The shipping systems are also heavily automated. Once picks are completed, staff confirm and create ASNs for Amazon or goods are added to a shipping manifest for Canada Post. These are automated processes based on the ship via of each order.
The Results
Operational costs are minimized at Augsburg Fortress by having many routine tasks managed in the software. A large percentage of incoming orders get processed without human intervention. Shipping functions are automated to reduce errors and to improve shipping productivity.
Key Benefits
- Lower cost of operation for a distribution warehouse.
- Control and reduced costs in shipping by allowing the software to manage weighing, shipping and labeling the product as it leaves the warehouse.
Augsburg Fortress keeps operational costs low by automating standard processes in the warehouse.