Walmart has begun asking most of its suppliers for fees to cover the costs of carrying inventory and use of its warehouses and distribution centers, in an effort to cover those costs and apply the fees more uniformly.

Challenge: The distribution centers were processing about 150 truckloads per day, 10 truckloads per hour. An automated WMS was needed for expansion into cold store market. Current work flows were not fully automated, causing manual errors. Material flows between product, semi-finished inventory and packaging stages were long and complex. Frozen pallets left the refrigeration system too early, so goods arrived damaged.