Case Study: Wigwam Mills achieves 10-minute shipping close-out and seamless ERP integration with Varsity Logistics

Wigwam Mills Knits a Seamless Shipping Experience with Varsity

Wigwam Mills, a Sheboygan, WI sock manufacturer that ships 350–500 parcels per day, needed to replace multiple outdated PC-based shipping and warehouse systems as part of a Y2K initiative. The fragmented systems were costly to maintain, required expensive consultants, didn’t communicate with each other, and forced the shipping department to shut down an hour early each day. Wigwam required a solution that would support their customized RF picking/packing processes and allow source-code access, so they selected Varsity Logistics and its ShipSoft-Parcel and ShipPack products alongside a new Infor Style21 ERP.

Varsity Logistics implemented ShipSoft-Parcel and ShipPack, customized ShipPack for handheld RF screens and fewer data fields, and Wigwam built an interface to Infor Style21 in just two days; the fully integrated system went live on November 1, 1999. The Varsity solution eliminated manual upload/download steps, returned tracking and freight data to Style21, and cut daily shipping close-out from about one hour to under ten minutes. As a result, Wigwam increased productivity and reduced costs while handling growing volume (350–500 parcels/day) without adding shipping staff.

Wigwam Mills

Bill Young

Programmer Analyst