CASE STUDY
Telecommunications logistics company advances its custom application
Miles IT helped Tellworks upgrade its custom asset & inventory management system to support its expansion to a national distributor and improve overall operational efficiency and customer support.
MEET THE CLIENT
Logistics and warehousing solutions for telecommunications
Tellworks is a leading inventory management company specializing in providing infrastructure and systems for businesses across the telecommunications industry.
THE CHALLENGE
Upgrading custom inventory management system to meet growing demands
As part of its expansion to a national distribution center, Tellworks faced significant challenges with its existing asset & inventory management system (AIMS).
Legacy Custom Software
It sought to build various improvements and advancements for its custom application to align its functionality with its evolving needs.
Surge in Request Volume
However, its previous development partner struggled to keep up with the volume of requests and failed to align workflows with Tellworks’ business processes.
Inconsistencies and Gaps
These obstacles resulted in inconsistencies in inventory counts and gaps in critical workflows, demanding an innovative solution to ensure success.
OUR APPROACH
Vision to Reality
To address Tellworks’ complex challenges, the company partnered with Miles IT, a renowned software solutions provider with a proven track record in supporting and enhancing custom software systems. Using our Vision to Reality process, our experts performed a deep analysis in order to understand the architecture to a level that we can support and enhance the system.
Business Analysis
Miles took a comprehensive look at Tellworks’ system in order to understand how the application functions and how Tellworks uses it to run its business.
Detailed Technical Audit
To get a better understanding of the application at the technical level, we worked with the Tellworks team to obtain knowledge of its source code, database, and environment needs.
Security Assessment
We worked with Tellworks to gain an understanding of its support needs. We also took a collaborative approach to understand the future needs of Tellworks, so that we could create a roadmap to prioritize their needs.
Recommendations
Through our comprehensive, we were able to provide Tellworks recommendations that would improve its security posture, enhance application efficiency, and provide a valuable impact on their business.
SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
Ongoing support and projects for advancement
At the conclusion of this process, Miles IT was prepared to partner with Tellworks through an ongoing Support and Evolve Plan. Since that time, our teams have worked together to design, develop, and implement numerous advancements to its system.
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Stabilization and Optimization of Inventory
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A primary concern for Tellworks was inventory variances between their counts and those of their largest client, T-Mobile. The inventory variances between Tellworks’ counts and T-Mobile’s counts were very different. Our team’s first recommendation was to focus on cleaning up key workflows so that Tellworks could gain better insights on their inventory across customers, in order to stabilize the inventory counts. Due to the complexity of their processes, our team needed to understand what was attributing to the inventory variances, why the variances were happening and build new workflows to address the variances between locations. Miles IT also continued to build new processes to help Tellworks and T-Mobile understand where parts of their inventory are located within the NDC.
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Systems Integration
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T-Mobile works with various other providers to build the inventory required to assemble the “tower kits”. To provider better and more responsive services, Tellworks worked with Miles IT to build integrations to third party companies in order to streamline their critical processes.
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Purchase Order Management
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An integration was created with SAP’s ARIBA system to share purchase order details with Tellworks, so that orders and inventory could be properly reconciled accurately, as they are received in the warehouse. In order to be efficient, this integration would let Tellworks know when they could expect to receive the inventory using Advanced Shipment Notifications (ASN).
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Asset Management
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An integration was created to a customer asset tracking system (CATS). The function of this application was to track each asset’s exact location from within the warehouse. Tellworks and Miles IT built this integration so that Tellworks could understand where it was located, whether it’s on a truck, sitting on the dock or forklift, or accounted for in order to reconcile it to a count.
Other Integrations
Miles IT and Tellworks have continued to collaborate on a number of other integrations to automate and streamline their process. Integrations have been built in order to manage bill of materials records against inventory. Custom APIs have been developed to keep new and legacy applications in sync with other third party systems.
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PickWave API
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An integration was created to streamline the processing of picking Bill of Materials (BOMs). This integration automatically sends a list of BOMs to the Tellworks system so that they are added to a Pick Schedule for order fulfillment. It allows pick schedules to be created on-demand, in real-time, as the truck loads are being prepared for pick-up. The planner can now create smaller and more specific pick plans for each truckload, optimizing the picking process and making it more efficient. This improvement in planning ensures that the right items are picked and loaded onto each truck, saving time and resources.
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TMO Digital Layer Integration
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TMO Digital Layer is responsible for capturing information related to receipts, fulfillment, and associated assets. Once this data is collected, it will be transferred from the TMO Digital Layer to specific systems within the TMO, namely SAP and CATS. The integration aims to replace the current method of sending Goods Receipts, Shopping Cart details, Goods Issues, and Adjustments to TMO’s SAP application using flat files and SFTP transmission. Instead, the TMO Digital Layer will handle this data transfer more efficiently. The confirmation files from SAP will still be received in a flat file format and sent back to the Tellworks system.
The integration helps facilitate communication between the Tellworks system and the CATS database by comparing the data in the CATS File that is sent to Tellworks. This process will ensure that the two systems remain in sync and enable smoother data exchange between them.
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FourKites Integration
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FourKites Software provides tracking of shipment information for end-to-end visibility across the supply chain and real time freight tracking. The integration between FourKites Software and the Tellworks system seamlessly provides comprehensive tracking of shipment information throughout the supply chain. Through each transaction, FourKites sends instant updates through the API, to the Tellworks system for data storage.
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Freight Transportation EDI Integration
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This integration expands the Tellworks system’s capabilities by including more transportation carriers within its carrier EDI framework. To achieve this, the project involves configuring the EDI integration for Mack Transportation and setting up the necessary file transmission process for sending and receiving EDI files. The two types of EDI files involved in this project are 214 and 990. This enhancement will improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of freight transportation operations for Tellworks and its partners.
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Zendesk Integration
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Tellworks wanted to integrate a helpdesk solution into their application and Resale Recycle (RR) portal. This integration will allow Tellworks’ clients to easily submit support requests from within their application navigation menus. This also allows Tellworks to enhance customer support for their clients, making it easier for them to seek assistance and access support resources
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Truck Load Request APIs
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The intention of these API endpoints was to expand the capabilities of the Tellworks system to perform various actions related to trucking operations. The following actions were created:
- Request Trucks: Sends the necessary information to the designated Transportation Company for requesting a truck using an EDI Request (204).
- Cancel Truck Request: Sends the required information for canceling a load request from AIMS Plus to AIMS. This ensures that any unnecessary or no longer needed load requests can be promptly canceled, saving time and resources.
- Update Truck Request: Tellworks can now update specific details such as comments or pallet information on a load. This flexibility enables users to make necessary adjustments and keep load information accurate and up-to-date.
- Add/Remove Pick to Load: The new API EndPoint allows users to add or remove Pick Authorization to a designated truck. This enables efficient load management and ensures that the right items are picked and loaded onto the truck.
- Deploy Truck: Tellworks will be able to update the status of Pick Authorization on a truck to “Deployed” and the status of the load to “Shipped.”
RESULTS
Faster order processing and happier customers
As a result of the streamlined processes and optimization, our development efforts with Tellworks have directly impacted and improved their throughput to process orders.
Strengthened Customer Relationships
Because the processes have dramatically improved, Tellworks is more easily able to honor service level agreements they have in place with their customers.
Enhanced Inventory Management
Additionally, we have improved the quality and reliability of their inventory to help them understand what they have in order to determine how many orders they have handled.
MOVING FORWARD
Continued operational improvement
Our collaboration with Tellworks has resulted in significant improvements to their inventory management system and overall operational efficiency.
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Better Insights
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By focusing on stabilizing and optimizing inventory counts, we were able to provide Tellworks with better insights into their inventory across customers and locations. Our integrations with third-party companies streamlined critical processes, leading to improved responsiveness and service delivery.
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Better Support
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Our ongoing support and development efforts have not only resolved the inconsistencies and gaps in critical workflows but also enabled Tellworks to better handle high volumes of requests, meeting critical deadlines and honoring service level agreements with their customers.
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Better Inventory Control
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The enhancements we implemented have empowered Tellworks to gain better control over their inventory, resulting in improved decision-making and order processing. With these advancements in place, Tellworks can confidently handle their clients’ demands and continue to provide exceptional service.
