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Information Technology
Infrastructure Platform
The advanced Jacobson Companies IT platform is designed for High Availability, operating 2 primary data centers that compliment each other from a hardware, network, and data standards perspective. Each data center has been designed to support the additional business applications running at each site. This provides a means to provide complete data replication between each site. These sites operate with 24 X 7, 365 days a year service levels. Each site hosts a farm of Windows servers and SAN.
Jacobson’s wide area network is a fully meshed Layer 3 MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) private network. This means that there are redundant routes inherit within the design of our network. All of our major warehouses reside on this MPLS wide area network design. Network redundancy to remote warehouse locations are managed by having DSL, ISDN, or wireless circuits installed with immediate failover performed within the remote wide area network router.
Due to the amount of business Jacobson does over the Internet and the critical nature of this business that occurs electronically, we have designed our Internet connections to have complete and dynamic failover between our two data centers. This design provides redundancy in case of an Internet outage at one of our data center sites and performs real time switching between two network access points connected to the Internet.
Jacobson has formalized business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans to ensure minimal interruption in the event of a disaster. Currently, Jacobson has a hot site disaster recovery contract with Sungard Recovery Services. Many functions are also capable of moving to the reciprocal primary data center when needed.
Business to Business Capabilities
Jacobson’s integration strategy and systems have the ability to interact between your company’s host systems and Jacobson’s systems via a multitude of interfaces. Our systems support communication protocols such as FTP, secure FTP, AS2, XML, HTTP and HTTPS. Jacobson accepts any data format including EDI standards as well as proprietary formats. Examples of information exchanged include orders, receipt, inventory adjustments, shipments, tracking and tracing.
Web Visibility Through the Internet
Jacobson provides visibility to your data through a secure Extranet web portal. Real time information is available which may also be downloaded into numerous formats. Using Jacobson’s web-enabled service, customers will have visibility to current inventory with SKU balances for Available, On-Hold, Damage, and Quality Assurance. Other web functions provide receipts, shipments, advanced shipping notice, and days in inventory information including detail quantities by lot or date and track/trace capabilities.
Warehouse Management Systems
Jacobson Companies offers both a “General” and “Advanced (best of breed)” warehouse management solution. Both solutions offer real time information providing exceptional customer service and value for our customers. They support seamless integration with our customer networks providing a single-source end-to-end logistics solution.
The “General” WMS solution offers a low entry cost, paper based, proven system that offers the latest performance capabilities available in the industry. The features include:
- Inventory Management including Lot Control
- Receiving Module
- Shipping Module
- Reporting Module
- Labeling Module
The “Advanced” WMS solution enables customers to manage their inventory accurately while providing warehouse operations the utmost efficiencies through radio frequency task management (RF), voice, or paper-based technologies. With an accurate view of available inventory, equipment, and labor resources, the system directs warehouse operations to fulfill manufacturing orders for components and raw materials to production (including Vendor Managed Inventory) or filling retail customer demand orders within your logistics distribution network.
This system provides better levels of control, permitting customers to better plan and manage their inventory, while providing management and corporate systems with real-time visibility. With up-to-the-second inventory visibility by SKU and lot, the system will direct putaway or picking to a specific zone, aisle, or bay through radio frequency task managed work queues.
The system maintains a unique bar code tag (License Plate) applied to each carton or pallet received and staged for putaway. This License Plate is used to track the specific receipt, quantity, and trace properties per license plate number (LPN). Damaged goods, returns, and materials requiring QA (Quality Assurance) are segregated from those to be cross-docked or stored. Once the products are staged for putaway and the License Plate has been applied, the system will immediately calculate the putaway location and create a task within a work queue via RF terminal. The system will also direct putaway tasks based on what type of handling equipment is required for the task.
This “Best in Class” system is configurable and flexible to meet your specific functional requirements. Some of the features and functions include:
- Three Tiered Technology
- Receiving
- Putaway
- Cross-Docking
- Order/Wave Planning
- Picking/Packing
- Shipping and Trailer Loading
- Multiple Levels of Inventory Control including Warehouse, Owner, License Plate,
Location, Serial Number, and Lot
- Cycle Counting
- Full Transaction Logging
- Event Management
- RF and Desktop Personalization
- Integrated Reporting & Dashboard
- Simultaneous Radio Frequency (RF) and/or Paper Operation
- Multi-Lingual Operations
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- Inbound Inspection and Sampling
- User Defined Labels and Shipping Paperwork
- Labor/Task Management
- ASN and Multi-SKU Container Receiving
- System-Directed Replenishment
- Cluster and Batch Picking
- Forward Pick Re-Slotting
- Lot and Code Date Tracking
- Serial Number Tracking with both End to End and Outbound Options
- Integrated Small Parcel Shipping Execution
- Catchweight Capture
- Bill of Materials and User Accessible Work-plans
- Advanced Kitting Supporting Kit-To-Stock, Kit-To-Order, and Configure-To-Order Fulfillment
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Transportation and Logistic Systems
LINCS™ (Logistics Integrated Network Collaboration System) is a fully integrated and secure information management system that Jacobson Companies has designed exclusively for our customers. LINCS™ serves as an information “link” between your enterprise system and Jacobson Companies freight management processes.
The complete real-time system can assist you by providing critical, time-sensitive information about your products including:
- Order Management
- Event Management
- Route Optimization
- Shipment Visibility
- Freight Rates
- Reports
- Performance Management
Jacobson developed LINCS™ using state of the art technology allowing our system to integrate and share information with a variety of enterprise systems, accounting packages and other third party packages. Because of the dynamic nature of system, we are able to provide our customers with the technology to enhance order visibility and product flow throughout their supply chain. LINCS™ has been specifically designed to handle the diverse supply chain requirements of Jacobson’s customer base.
LINCS™ is part of Jacobson’s highly advanced, customized information technology (IT) platform that enhances our value proposition to our customers. LINCS™ and our integration capabilities will grow with us to ensure our ability to communicate effectively with our customers in the manner which they require. The LINCS™ software system was specifically designed to collaborate with you to consolidate and manage your freight shipments to reduce shipping costs and optimize delivery schedules – all of which will undoubtedly benefit your bottom line.
Packaging and Manufacturing Systems
Jacobson uses a “Best in Class” MRP system in the packaging and manufacturing processes. The system is built using the three tiered technology. The system is used for purchasing, inventory control, MRP production, and factory floor control. The system has the ability for B2B integration with our customers as well as extranet visibility to information.
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