PetFood Experts Reduces Labor Spend and Improves Service Levels across 6 Distribution Centers

Overview

Headquartered in Rhode Island with thirteen distribution centers throughout the U.S, Pet Food Experts has grown to be a leading distributor of pet food and supplies, partnering with 6,500 specialty retailers in 39 states.

The Challenge

As Pet Food Experts’ distribution network scales to meet their customer promise of high fill-rates and on-time delivery, order volumes in each location grew more variable which made labor planning and staffing more complex.

“For most of our locations, volume is disproportionately higher in the 1^st half of the week” reflects Paul McCarron, Chief Operating Officer.

‍Pet Food Experts’ Leadership Team sought a flexible staffing solution that would allow labor to be optimally planned and managed in line with fluctuations in order volumes.

The Solution

They needed a solution that could work alongside their WMS, HR System, and spreadsheets and be easily configured to each site and department. The solution also needed to be intuitive for Recruiting Teams, Operations Leaders, and Managers at the site level.

Results  

Since teaming up with Jetson, Pet Food Experts was able to reduce labor spend by over $600 thousand annually, decreased overtime by over 30% per week, and achieved other bottom-line benefits.

“In our Monday staffing meetings every conversation begins and ends withthe data in Jetson,” said McCarron.

Here are someways Pet Food Experts has unlocked labor efficiencies and improved service levels across their distribution network:

1. Aligned Staffing Levels with Order Volumes  

The Pet Food Experts Team maintained a staffing plan for each location in spreadsheets which needed to be manually updated based on changes in order volumes, turnover, and absences.

“Before Jetson, staffing was akin to a kindergarten soccer game where wewere chasing the soccer ball around the field” reflects McCarron.  

Jetson takes the guesswork and number crunching out of labor planning for Pet Food Experts, with automated staffing targets that update in line with order volumes and changes in staffing levels at each location so that teams can work off an accurate and up to date picture of labor needs.

2. Empowered Managers with Overtime Visibility and Decision Support  

Tracking overtime was retroactive and manual for operations teams at Pet Food Experts.

“We were exporting data manually from our payroll provider into a spreadsheet and doing calculations each day to figure out what was going on with overtime” reflects Martin Kell, Sr. Operations Manager.

Jetson provides managers a real-time view of overtime hours with intelligence to support optimal coverage decisions.

“We’ve reduced unnecessary spend by adjusting our schedules based on the insights from Jetson’s Overtime Tracker,” said Kell.

3. Incorporated Productivity into their Staffing Approach

By integrating with Pet Food Experts’ picking system, Jetson pulls in productivity data for each location and work area to yield precise staffing targets. Working off productivity gives teams an opportunity to complete more orders with fewer labor hours than they thought possible.

“The tool has allowed leadership to challenge their headcount needs and productivity assumptions with all the data and historicals to back it up” reflects McCarron.

4.Simplified Holiday Planning

Holiday closures have a big impact on Pet Food Expert’s order volume the week before, the week of, and the week after. Scheduling labor over the holidays was a tedious and complex exercise for Operations Teams at the sites and often resulted in more overtime than planned.

Leveraging the planning capabilities in Jetson, “we’ve been able to generate an optimal labor plan in half the time that accurately reflects closures or shortened schedules while avoiding unneccesary overtime!” explains McCarron.

5. Mitigated Coverage Gaps with Predictive Attendance

Call-outs and absences create variability in coverage and overtime across the Pet Food Experts distribution network which drives labor costs. Jetson helps each location build a more resilient staffing plan by seamlessly integrating historical call-outs and attendance data into each week's labor plan.

“We’ve been able to put math behind our labor assumptions for call-outs and absences using historical data” explains Brian Wyrostek, VP Business Intelligence.

6. Gave Teams a Single Source of Truth for Current and Future Staffing Needs

Jetson has eliminated unnecessary meetings and back and forth between teams at Pet Food Experts, allowing Operations Leaders to focus on meeting their delivery promise instead of wrangling spreadsheets.

“Jetson has become a central hub for all our labor and planning data, creating a standard across the network that lets each location plan and manage their labor the same way” reflects Wyrostek.