eFactory: Feature Release

Improved Navigation

As with every update, we have made modifications to the interface in order to give the platform greater efficiency and useability. 

Every eFactory user has the option to customize the initial dashboard to view the metrics and information most relevant to them. We envision this section to be the nerve center of our customer’s fulfillment management strategy. It is not simply a display piece, rather an interactive comprehensive tool for better planning and management. In the newest version of eFactory, users will find: 

• A full display of order and item information including, open and shipped items, holds, open RMAs, specific warehouse inventory, and much more.  
• Orders and inventory can be sorted by multiple dimensions (channel, warehouse, dates, and more) to easily understand all incoming and outgoing orders and inventory. 
• All order and component numbers are hyperlinked to enable a fast view into each item’s details and specifics. 
• Users can easily change, edit, and cancel PO Notifications (ASNs), adjust the receiving date for any order. 
• All work orders, completed, in process, and current can be tracked over any given period of time.

Reports and Analytics

The dashboards in eFactory are highly customizable with real-time data linked directly to our fulfillment operating system. The platform has robust reports and analytics that can be tailored to help plan and project your company’s growing needs. 

In this update we’ve added more data dimensions and property values to the report section to enable a greater level of detail. The five new report types enable sorting data by: time, item, channel, customer, and ship method; additionally you can drill down further to view any of these by accounts, warehouse, destination, channel, country, state, or customer. You can also compare historical data. These new features will allow much more granular data mining. 

DCL customers rely heavily on the reporting functions in eFactory—many use it as a daily view of their operations, and some use it for custom reports to make projections, report to investors, and better understand business growth trajectory. By adding more customizable filters users can have a deeper view into their operations: 

• Create dynamic visualizations of real-time inventory and shipping data. 
• Enable comprehensive tracking, historical comparison, and overall views of inventory. 
• Establish trends and growth patterns with multiple types of data quickly. 
• View unit volume by time to make historical comparisons and plan inventory strategy. 
• Use channel trends (such as Shopify, REST, EDI, orderpoints, etc) to report on sales by channels to help with channel strategies. 
• Search trends by region (country and state) to help forecast by region and steer sales efforts to growing marketings.
• Look into customer metrics to identify your top customers and their buying habits.
• View ship service data to inform shipping strategies and identify ways to save money.

“eFactory is a very impressive tool, and very easy to integrate. eFactory always gives us what we need, it was a big factor in our decision to partner with DCL.”

Item Bundling Feature

DCL customers now have the ability to designate groupings of items and components within their inventory that can be bundled together as a single package or line on an order. Sending just the bundle number to the warehouse will signify that those specific components should be picked and packed, or even assembled together for that particular order. This enhancement allows customers greater flexibility in their order management and a simplified way of offering a wider variety of ordering options for their end-customer. We support three different types of bundling: 

• Regular bundled—two or more specific items, predesignated to ship as one part number. 
• Configured—a set of items that can be added to a single package in any permutation that the end-consumer wants. 
• Assembled to Order—designating an item that needs to be assembled with one or two specific components. This is designed for short-run assembly only as the bundles will be made as the items are received.  

Customers can work with their account managers to build bundles in the DCL system, and they are easily managed and edited within eFactory. Each bundled order will ship in full (if all components are available in stock) and eFactory will display the data of how many bundles are available per inventory levels of all items. The packing slip can be customized to either print the bundled part number, the component part numbers, or both.

Delivery Status Notification

DCL understands the importance of tracking delivery information for end-customers—no matter if they are B2C or B2B. It’s a huge enhancement for a positive customer service experience. Through eFactory users can quickly edit their order delivery options and track RMAs. In the current feature update we have also added end-of-day delivery status notifications to give users more tools to deliver best-in-class service: users will be able to view the estimated and actual delivery dates via deep links to carrier websites which pull updates on an order basis. Delivery status information will be added everyday from carriers that DCL has a direct relationship with.  

In today’s ecommerce world of immediate need and customer demand, having a reliable way to see real-time inventory and order data is a deal-breaker. DCL customers work closely with their account managers to set up the systems in eFactory that help their businesses thrive and grow. Many of our customers recommend eFactory as the best tool of it’s kind in the industry because it helps them create efficiencies across their supply chain.

If you are looking for a technology-focused 3PL, we’d love to hear from you. We can give you a full demo of eFactory and it’s many capabilities, and tell you about the services we offer. Drop us a line.