The Kershaw family, owners of Domex Superfresh Growers, has been connected to the land in Washington State for over 100 years. Now a 5th generation farming family, they share the same American farming values as the many Superfresh growers that produce fruit under the Domex Superfresh Growers brand: to grow and deliver safe and healthy fruit to families worldwide. Kershaw Fruit ships 60,000 cartons (1200 pallets) of apples domestically and internationally weekly.
“Thanks to RedLine, we have confidence our forklift drivers are getting the right pallets at the right time, improving our product rotation far beyond where we had been.” -Eric Skiles, IT Manager, Kershaw Fruit
“RedLine and Compu-Tech collaborated to deliver the requested solution in record time. RedLine’s support, both before and after implementation, has been fantastic.“ -Jason Kinloch Operations Manager, Domex Superfresh Growers 1
Kershaw Fruit operates a world-class packing, cooling, and shipping business. With the addition of a new cooler space in 2013, the company has three buildings encompassing ten rooms, with storage for 4000 pallets or 200,000 cartons. The future includes additional expansion. With the addition of more space, workers would have more options for putting away products—and correspondingly, more options for missing products in the movement of pallets each day. This situation highlighted the need for real-time location management and an electronic data collection solution for Kershaw.
“We wanted to get fruit rotation right to ensure we get the best quality fruit to our customers. With the addition of more space, rotation is even more complicated. While we were doing a good job, we recognized that our expansion plans made it important to add new solutions for managing products, collecting data, and getting rotation done right,” said Eric Skiles, IT Manager for Kershaw Fruit.
Kershaw always knew what they had on-site because it was noted in the inventory – but physically finding specific pallets could be a challenge. Sometimes, they could spend 30 minutes or more with multiple forklift drivers looking for the product. The net result? The lack of efficient selection of products caused delays in getting the current trucks loaded and on the road. This created a domino effect, delaying all the trucks for the rest of the day. When the loaders could not find the product, the office staff were impacted as their work was interrupted, and they spent extra time locating fruit to allocate orders.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that they needed a mobile warehouse management and data collection solution to interface with their existing Compu-Tech Pallet Ticket Module. The challenge was identifying a company that could offer the right product solution and integrating it with the Compu-Tech solution to create a new system.
Reputation was key in convincing Kershaw Fruit to work with RedLine Solutions. Since traceability is becoming more important in the industry, RedLine’s leadership in traceability was important to them.
At Kershaw’s request, a strategic alliance was formed between RedLine Solutions and Compu-Tech. RedLine CEO Todd Baggett and Compu-Tech CEO Jennifer Wiggs collaborated to integrate a RedLine Solution hardware and software with the Compu-Tech Pallet Ticket and Staging Modules. This partnership leveraged Compu-Tech’s long-standing expertise as Kershaw’s accounting partner and RedLine’s advanced cooler management solutions. The collaboration was smooth and effective, allowing Kershaw to be involved as needed while ensuring that the requested product solution was delivered with excellent support.
The hallmark of the RedLine Solutions system is how flexible and customizable the software and corresponding hardware are. Customers can determine their preferences, system settings, user roles, permissions, and which features are enabled. The initial delivery of RedLine solutions completion and integration with Compu-Tech was completed in just 2.5 months after the project inception.
The RedLine Solutions mobile capabilities were to mirror the Compu-Tech processes. Real-time location management was made available through RedLine’s Pallet Movement, Quick and Directed Shipping functions. RedLine’s Directed Staging integrates with Compu-Tech’s Staging Module to help forklift drivers select the correct pallets for shipping.
Once RedLine installed the software, training sessions were held for Kershaw’s forklift drivers. After that, the RedLine trainers coached the drivers in their first use of the system. As pallets were moved with RedLine, Kershaw’s shipping manager was able to run reports to check the progress, demonstrating that pallet put-aways were clearly recorded in Compu-Tech.
“The seamless interaction between the two 3 CASE STUDY: Kershaw Fruit Revs Up Efficiency with New RedLine Cooler App applications works flawlessly,” said Jason Kinloch, Operations Manager for Kershaw Fruit.
Kershaw’s forklift drivers got the hang of using RedLine’s mobile scanners within a few days, which was one of the biggest contributors to the early success of this new solution’s implementation. They embraced the scan guns and automated processes, and the team achieved early buy-in from the users because of the great training and support RedLine provided.
Rotation Improvements: The biggest impact was seen in rotation improvements. Kershaw now has visibility that their drivers are getting the right pallets at the right time. Now they KNOW with 100% confidence they are getting exactly what we want them to get.
Increased Productivity: Kershaw’s goal is to reduce the time it takes to get trucks loaded and on the road. RedLine helped them improve forklift drivers’ productivity. The office staff have fewer interruptions from the drivers, so they are more productive as well. Moving the workflow from Office 4 onto the forklift is a key benefit of this new, modern system. It closed the gap in data reporting and the knowledge of each pallet to easily assign the outgoing tag much more efficiently and with flawless precision. The ROI for Kershaw became apparent within days.
Labor Savings: Beyond the initial benefits of improved rotation and efficiencies, Kershaw realized a 30% labor savings as fewer workers were required, particularly in the shipping department, once the RedLine solution was online.
“We are very pleased with RedLine Cooler. Within two months’ time, we accomplished our goals. Our product rotation has improved; we’re more efficient in our cooler operations and can get trucks loaded and on the road faster. As added bonuses, our office staff can focus on more important tasks, and we will reduce our labor costs,” concluded Eric Skiles, IT Manager for Kershaw Fruit.
About RedLine Solutions: RedLine Solutions provides inventory and whole-chain traceability systems for growers, packers, and shippers. With over 100 produce installations, we deliver modern solutions to help your company improve business and operational efficiencies, increasing productivity and safety compliance.
For 27 years, RedLine Solutions has been the trusted partner in inventory and traceability for fresh produce stakeholders across North America. Serving a myriad of commodities, we tailor solutions to your workflow. Our offerings, from hardware to software, coupled with deep expertise, ensure your produce operations management is in the best hands.
