Beyond Dimensioning: How vMeasure Changed Parcel Measurements and Finance Together
Ever heard of a dimensioner that goes beyond the warehouse and helps afinance team reconcile shipping bills in 20 minutes instead of 7 days? That’s the story of vMeasure Parcel Ultima and how it helped our customer not only do away with tape measures but reconcile supplier bills without having to wait for the warehouse team to give them the parcel measurements—which were plagued with in accuracies at that time. To understand the magnitude of vMeasure Parcel Ultima’s impact, the narrative now shifts to our customer’s process before their problems became significant enough to trigger a search for a solution.
The Hidden Cost of Traditional Dimensioning
Our customer is a shipper with a strong presence in India.Behind every shipment, there were countless labor hours that could have been saved. A lot of courier partners awaited settlement. The company didn’t know they were paying a lot on shipping because most of the parcel measurementswere wrong.If anyone were to look at their warehouse operation, they would find twosupervisors and four warehouse associates working for the parcel measurementsand getting all the data required to manually reconcile bills. But too many cooks spoil the broth, and it couldn’t be more true for this shipperas it took four to five hours for processing thirty-five to fifty consignments. And that was not the end of it.
From the Warehouse to the Finance Desk: The Problem Creeps In
The problems were not confined within their warehouse walls. Their financeteam took the brunt of everything that went wrong at the warehouse.
How could the finance team reconcile bills without the shipment and courier partner data when they needed it? How could they expect payments to be madewithin the promised timelines when it took at least a week to compile all the data?The courier companies waited thirty to forty days more because the financeteam couldn’t process the bills due to unavailability of the parcel data at the right time.So, that’s how the situation was stacked against the shipper. They knew it washigh time they found a solution.
vMeasure Parcel Ultima: The End of the Tape Measure
One of the decision makers from the company happened to come across the vMeasure Parcel Ultima website and after a few meetings, installed it in their warehouse.The company did their first scan. Then the tenth. And the 100 th scan. But this time, something was different.What took four to five hours previously became a thirty-minute process.Gone were the days when they needed two supervisors and four warehouse associates to measure parcels and compile supplier data. Now, only onesupervisor works for that data.The warehouse associates did not have to think twice about the measurement accuracy because they believed a machine would not be manipulating thedimensions.They let go of the tape measures and embraced the new normal of automateddimensioning, the benefits of which went beyond the warehouse.
Days to Minutes in Shipping Bill Reconciliation
vMeasure Parcel Ultima changed how their finance team worked the shippingbills. Instead of waiting for the parcel data, the team accessed them fromvMeasure Forge, the cloud counterpart of vMeasure Parcel Ultima that allowedeverything from user and device management to workflow customization from acentralized platform.
They customized the workflow to select a courier partner at the beginning ofeach scan. In this way, every parcel measurement got mapped with a courierpartner.So, towards the end of a payment cycle, the finance team accessed vMeasureForge and downloaded the parcel data along with their respective courierpartners as an excel file. This drastically reduced the bill reconciliation timefrom 7 days to 20 minutes.
Fostering Trust with Computer Vision Technology
vMeasure Parcel Ultima became the single source of truth between the courierpartners and the finance team, fostering trust and smoothening out a processpreviously plagued by delays and disputes.The business impact was clear: faster measurements, quicker reconciliations,and a drastic decline in operational costs. However, the most noteworthy shift isin the company’s perception about the use of a dimensioner.This case study isn’t about the latest groundbreaking tech or trend in thewarehouse and logistics world but about a simple dimensioner that transcendedthe standard meaning of a dimensioning system by doing far more than justmeasuring parcels.
The Vision Ahead
Accuracy in dimensions and automation of dimensioning is a part ofvMeasure’s grand vision. Because we intend to push the limits of computervision technology.Starting from error and anomaly detection using real-time computer visionenabled monitoring of packing processes to a comprehensive dock managementsolution that consolidates scheduling, driver check-in, and dock door allocation,we want to make an impact not just at the receiving or packing station but theentire warehouse and logistics processes.To learn more about vMeasure Parcel Ultima and how it can help you reduceshipping costs or build accurate SKU master data, get in touch with ourdimensioning specialist for a live demo.