RAWLINGS

MOBILIZING WAREHOUSE OPERATIONS FOR THE WIN

Rawlings Sporting Goods is the official ball supplier to Major League Baseball® and is a leading marketer and manufacturer of baseball equipment and other sporting goods. Since the company’s inception in 1887, Rawlings’ mission has always been centered on enabling participation by developing and producing innovative, high-performance sports equipment and protective apparel for the professional, amateur, and entry-level player. With their wide range of baseball, basketball, and football game-related product lines, Rawlings is present almost everywhere team sports are played.

THE CHALLENGE

Rawlings Sporting Goods struggled to quickly and accurately fill orders with manual, paper-based warehouse processes.

THE SOLUTION

To leverage the power of its enterprise software investments, Rawlings integrated Cloud Inventory® with Oracle’s JD Edwards World and the JD Edwards Warehouse Management System (WMS). With the Cloud Inventory solution in place, Rawlings experienced real-time connectivity between the ERP system and workers on the warehouse floor.

“Cloud Inventory gave us the flexibility to enhance the WMS to better meet our needs. It allowed us to complete the project on time and on budget,” said Jack Matthews, Rawlings’ Director of IT. Paired with Motorola 9090-G wireless handheld computers, the Cloud Inventory solution equips warehouse staff to be mobile information workers.

THE RESULTS

The incredible results prompted the company to investigate whether supply chain processes at other company warehouses would also benefit from Cloud Inventory’s digital supply chain solutions. Because the JD Edwards infrastructure was in place across Rawlings’ operations, it was easy to expand the deployment of Cloud Inventory mobile applications.

One of Rawlings’ most important warehouse performance metrics is its cost-per-carton, which includes all the variable labor costs incurred while preparing a carton for shipment. Since implementing Cloud Inventory and JD Edwards WMS, Rawlings has reduced its cost-per-carton from $1.16 to $0.61, a 47 percent reduction. The cost-per-carton has decreased for four consecutive years, showing how Cloud Inventory provides sustainable benefits by giving users the flexibility to make continuous improvements.

As inventory accuracy has improved, Rawlings has reduced the value of its inventory write-downs by 50 percent and backorders have been reduced more than 75 percent.

“We’ve been able to go from being a good performer to a top performer,” said Mike Campbell, Senior Director of Global Logistics. “I’ve got e-mails from customers stating that we’re ‘the best’ at delivering sporting goods. For operations and customer service, we’ve been able to hit back-to-back home runs with the implementation of Cloud Inventory, Motorola, and Oracle’s JD Edwards WMS.

INDUSTRY

SPORTING GOOD SUPPLIES

“I don’t think porting applications to other locations could be any smoother or faster than it’s been.”

—Claude Tougas, Rawlings’ Systems Analyst

“Cloud Inventory gave us the flexibility to enhance the WMS to better meet our needs. It allowed us to complete the project on time and on budget.”

- Jack Matthews, Rawlings’ Director of IT

ERP: JD Edwards World

HIGHLIGHTS

• Mobile-first Field Order Fulfillment

• App performs on or offline

• Personalized solution supports unique business processes

• Single platform digitizes operations across the supply chain