Americold, provider of temperature-controlled warehousing and logistics to the food industry, announced the launch of the next generation of its temperature-controlled supply chain visibility and reporting tool, i-3PL.
The company’s i-3PL application offers users a portal view to track inventory throughout more than 145 Americold facilities across the United States. Users can view and manage their inventory, check the status of shipments, enter and update orders, place orders on hold, run reports, and manage alerts based on data from across the US Americold network.
All data is available through EDI integration, making the information resident within a user’s ERP system, but it’s also available instantaneously through Americold’s online portal www.i-3pl.com as well as dynamically on any web-enabled smart device. This places real-time analytics into users’ hands wherever they may be, and empowers more qualified decisionmaking by providing direct access to inventory levels, reporting, pallet tracking, and alert management.
As users increasingly adopt management-by-exception, Americold’s i-3PL solution will proactively notify them should an order fall out of tolerance. This is a huge efficiency advancement.
Americold’s original i-3PL product was launched in 1999 and was precedent-setting in the management of temperature-controlled supply chains. Since then, it has grown to more than 30,000 monthly user log-ins, generating more than 100,000 monthly customized reports that track 3.5 billion cases annually.
In preparation for the launch, Americold held focus sessions with users to ensure that the user interface, streamlined navigation, and features of the redesign exceeded expectations. Besides user suggestions, key enhancements include support for all web-enabled handheld devices, role-based functionality, personalized dashboards tailored to a user’s specific needs, and a performance boost to increase report calculation response times. To support this release, enhanced training and reference videos have been produced for users to simplify transition to the upgraded system.
An overview of i-3PL is available here. More information is provided at www.americold.com.
