Better fulfillment is a work of art
A new approach to systems integration is helping The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York do a better job of controlling costs and expedite order management, general manager of distribution and fulfillment operations Peter Hantman told attendees June 6 at the 2007 Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in San Jose.
Hantman, speaking at a session titled “Timely, Fast and Cheap: The Qualities of Good Delivery and Fulfillment,” said an antiquated internal order management system and outdated manual procedures often resulted in poor service for the museum’s web shoppers. “We did batch downloading of orders, but after the Friday downloads no pick tickets were issued until the following Tuesday,” he said. “That situation made us uncompetitive and provided poor customer service.”
Each year The Metropolitan Museum of Art, through its 21 retail shops, 20 shops in the main museum, catalogs and the Internet, generates about $70 million in sales, including about $7 million in e-commerce sales. The institution’s fulfillment unit also picks, packs and ships more than 300,000 packages annually.
But outdated and internally developed order management and inventory management systems that weren’t integrated often resulted in the museum processing less than 80% of same-day orders, compared with rates of more than 90% to 100% at e-commerce sites such as Crutchfield.com and Backcountry.com, Hantman said.
To achieve better results, the museum purchased new technology from Manhattan Associates Inc. and CommercialWare Inc., set up a more tightly integrated order management system, and renegotiated shipping rates. Today the museum’s fulfillment and customer service staff have real-time access to all order information. And the fulfillment department’s same-day order processing rate now is well above 80% and annual shipping costs have been reduced by more than 20%. “We eliminated a lot of manual counting and procedures,” Hantman told attendees. “We don’t have as many touch points as we used to because our systems now to talk with each other.”
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