Okay, so let’s start from the beginning. You know, what were you doing before we engaged? What job were you trying to do? What problem were you trying to solve? In the beginning, I believe we were looking at a problem with incorrect quantities or items being shipped. We needed a way to document what items we were shipping out.
We have a multitude of items in our warehouse—over 50,000 lines. Knowing what is picked and what actually was sent to the customer is very helpful, especially if they receive the wrong part or if we were missing parts out of that package. We can go back to reference that. So, we take pre-shipment photos of all of our shipments that go out.
It gives us the documentation to assist the customer if there’s an issue. Before Load Proof, we were using cheap disposable cameras with a little camera card in them. Someone had to be responsible for getting all the camera cards at the end of the day, uploading them to a network drive. It was cumbersome, and if anybody wanted to reference that, they had to be in the office.
They needed access to that drive and had to wait for it to boot up, which was kind of slow. There were speed and organization issues in finding the photos since they weren’t named properly. The camera used a default name, and with 100 shipments a day, we weren’t going to rename every photo.
We really like the accessibility of Load Proof. We appreciate the fact that we can reference multiple numbers or categories for each photo, making it easy to find them. Thank you very much for that response. Organization, efficiency, and accessibility have saved a lot of time spent on labor.
Yes, reducing those steps in the process saves time in finding the photos and maintaining and uploading them. So, it definitely is a time saver for us. That’s what we’re looking to achieve: saving time and money while improving those areas.
The second question is, where did you first hear about us? What caught your eye regarding Load Proof? What was the deciding factor for choosing us? I got an email, though I forget if it was external or an internal reference. Someone forwarded it to me, mentioning a smart gladiator.
I think “Gladiator” is a name I had seen before as part of a warehouse management system. That caught my eye because we were looking to get a new WMS or TMS system, as ours is a bit cumbersome. I explored further, and the photo program seemed like a perfect match for what we’ve been looking for.
We’ve wanted something where we could take a photo and name the file at the same time. This has been an ongoing issue for about four years. Load Proof just fit right into what we’ve been looking for.
Oh, that’s great! Thank you very much!
So, you’ve received one of our marketing emails and it caught your eye. I used to deal with the same type of thing. We used to take photos on a digital camera in my previous job. We’d take the USB and plug it in. I would walk from one end of the building to take photos of the equipment. It was a metal box—ever seen those big green boxes in neighborhoods? They’re power supplies for many different applications. I’d walk back to my desk, sometimes stopped by colleagues with questions. Then I’d plug in the USB, rename the file, resize it, and sometimes edit it in Paint. If there were multiple files, I had to compress them—it was just a nightmare.
I wish I had something like this in my previous job. It would have improved things greatly, naming the files as you upload them helps reduce steps. It’s a pain when you’re dealing with hundreds of photos. We ended up not naming them, creating a new folder every day for that day’s photos. If customer service wanted to view them, they had to start from the first photo. Each photo had to upload on the network drive, causing delays. They might click through a hundred photos before finding the right one. It was a difficult process. We had to take pictures of the packing slip and the order to track them. You’d find the packing slip and look for the time-stamped photos associated with that order.
This new system works much better. You can type in the order number and everything automatically appears on the website. It’s clear, with no wait time for loading. That’s great to hear! So, what results did you achieve from working with us? How would you describe the transformation and areas of improvement? We saw efficiency improvements, not needing labor for photo uploads. Customer service improved as my team accessed photos faster. There was also quality control improvement; we could take accountability for the photos. Before, I didn’t know which warehouse associate handled each order. Now, everyone has a username, making it easy to track responsibility.
We’ve really seen improvement in those three aspects of the business. That’s great, and I bet that helps reduce confusion too.