A MultiAd CubiScan 125 Case Study
MultiAd, Inc. is a full service marketing and advertising firm tasked with creating solutions for asset management, IT development, marketing and media services. Headquartered in Peoria, IL, MultiAd was founded in 1945 as a “clip-art” provider to the newspaper industry. The company has grown and evolved since then to meet the changing needs of clients across a broad range of industries. Throughout its history, the company has maintained a presence at the forefront of technological advancement. More than 4,000 clients, including Kraft, The Los Angeles Times, Lexus and PNC Financial Services Group, benefit from MultiAd’s creative solutions designed to raise brand awareness, increase sales and drive traffic through the creation and management of comprehensive marketing strategies.
Taking Command with Accurate Cube Data
According to Michael Coughlon, Vice President of Operations at MultiAd, the company receives approximately 400 product samples from major manufacturers every day. The precise measurement of these items is critical: both storefront and e-commerce retailers use the captured information for shelf space allocation planning. In August of 2013, MultiAd brought in the CubiScan 125, a sophisticated cubing system from Quantronix, in an attempt to boost consistency, improve the dimensioning process and optimize overall operations.
The CubiScan 125 was specifically designed to handle the measurement challenges -- such as small parts, irregular shaped, and boxed items -- faced by operations like MultiAd. This small, static cubing system uses a state-of-the-art combination of infrared and ultrasound sensing technologies to measure everything from non-cuboidal items to oversized boxes. Engineered for extreme flexibility and precision, the system offers significant capacity for both boxes and irregular items, as well as an integrated high accuracy scale. The unit also includes a convenient, user-friendly control panel display, which outputs directly to your PC. According to Coughlon, MultiAd has found the cubing system to be a critical tool in storage space planning. This innovative device also offers economical and invaluable solutions regarding order picking efficiencies, determining the best carton size selection, repacking, check-weighing and shipment manifesting. Prime candidates for this dimensioning device range from medical and pharmaceutical industries to hardware, apparel and consumer goods distribution.
MultiAd’s 125 is commissioned within the company’s shipping department, where the cubing system is used to quickly and accurately capture dimensional data and weight for both shipping and data entry practices. Dimensional results are easily uploaded to the company’s own proprietary data asset management tool with options for both real-time and batch-mode data transfer. A mobile cart and helpful accessories, such as a portable power supply, handheld barcode scanner and label printers, can be integrated to create a completely mobile and transformative work station to meet all of your mobile dimensioning, weighing and identification needs.
Cubing: Improving Accuracy, Consistency, and Reliability
Which box should I use for packing - is just one question being answered on a daily basis to overcome common distribution and shipping delemas? Now that all the cube and weight data are being interfaced with MultiAd's WMS, each shipping box has been optimized to the original items initial cubic data. Prior to integrating the cubing system from Quantronix into its dimensioning processes, MultiAd relied on multiple personnel working with digital calipers for its measuring needs; this method led to counterproductive inconsistencies and compromised data integrity. With the 125, a single operator is now tasked with capturing cube and weight data that is not only more consistent, but also safe for both employees and package contents. Since streamlining the dimensioning process with the CubiScan, MultiAd has experienced significant advancements in consistency, accuracy and reliability. MultiAd joins leading companies, such as Decker’s Outdoor, Trommer & Associates, UBD and the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company and about 6,000 other companies worldwide, in utilizing CubiScan’s state-of-the art technology to meet and exceed their strategic warehousing initiatives.
Now approaching its 70th anniversary, MultiAd has expanded to become a leading marketing solutions provider for thousands of clients. The systems powerful sensing technologies are helping the company remain on the cutting edge by offering a solution for today’s most demanding cubing and weighing applications. The result is not only better data collection, but also enhanced company-wide logistical planning.
