Colorado Springs, CO, US: Supply chain software provider, Accellos, has released a case study of its customer Commercial Cold Storage. The study illustrates how the South African third party logistics provider was able to implement Accellos’ 3PL software, Accellos One 3PL, at six facilities in a single weekend and has identified numerous benefits of using the software to manage its refrigerated warehousing operations.
Commercial Cold Storage, a subsidiary of South Africa’s Oceana Group, is the largest 3PL provider in Africa, serving importers and exporters through three freezer and controlled-temperature warehouses in Cape Town: one in Durban, one in Johannesburg and another in Walvis Bay, Namibia, as well as a number ambient temperature facilities.
The custom-programmed management software CCS used in its refrigerated warehouses was expensive to upgrade and maintain. It also lacked capabilities that the company felt would be critically important to its customers going forward under increasingly stringent regulatory and economic conditions.
Teams from Accellos and its Johannesburg partner, Dovetail Business Solutions, implemented Accellos One 3PL on independent servers at each of the six refrigerated warehouses over a single weekend. Most of the functionality is standard among the several sites, but Accellos also customized the software to serve unique requirements of each facility.
The successful effort transitioned CCS from its increasingly costly custom-programmed public refrigerated warehouse (PRW) software to a highly standardized state-of-the-art solution, paving the way to more efficient service, less costly domestic and international operations, as well as supporting new opportunities for growth.
“It is easier to collect and manipulate management data and importantly, we can provide customers with faster, easier access to information that is vital to their operations,” said Francois Dowling, general manager of Commercial Cold Storage, Cape Town. “Moreover, we have a flexible, fully configured system at each controlled temperature 3PL warehouse site, one that will not find us accruing additional costs with every modification and new requirement.”
