With over 100 corporate-owned retail stores, Papyrus, a paper wholesaler and retailer, ships to thousands of retailers throughout the United States and Canada. The Company manages all distribution through its 210,000-square-foot facility in Goodlettsville, Tenn.

According to Supply & Demand Chain Executive, in the summer of 2004, Papyrus completed a large warehouse expansion and consolidated inventories from two off-site facilities. It implemented supply chain solutions from RedPrairie Corp. and noted that inventory accuracy began improving exponentially. In 2003 accuracy rates were a respectable 97.5 percent, and in 2005 that rose to 99.9 percent on a total inventory of over 2.7 million units.

According to Mark Lacey, director of Distribution for Papyrus, labor is another area of significant savings since implementing RedPrairie.

"We have reduced our labor by half since the beginning of 2004, and we do more work," he said. "Before implementing the RedPrairie system our forklift operators averaged five to seven drops per hour. Now we average 30 drops per hour with fewer drivers. Plus we no longer use temporary labor. We regularly used 30 to 40 additional people during seasonal peaks, but now the efficiency of the system eliminates the need for temporary staff."

Papyrus has also streamlined the cartonization and shipping process. In 2004 the Company shipped 415,000 cartons. Since then, it has consolidated how it ships to customers and has reduced the total number of cartons by about 40 percent.