Overview
Blockbuster Inc. is a leading global provider of in-home movie and game entertainment, with more than 8,000 stores throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Challenge
Millions of consumers worldwide take advantage of the ability to rent the hottest new releases of videos from Blockbuster stores and view them in the pleasure of their own homes. But how does Blockbuster continue satisfying its loyal customers and ensuring its videos and the hot new release titles make it to stores each week?
The video rental industry is an 8 billion dollar market – an opportunity that results in fierce competition. Blockbuster manages its rental media supply chain through a single 850,000 square foot distribution center located in McKinney, Texas. This single distribution center is responsible for collaborating with its suppliers, vendors, retail stores, and customers to ultimately ensure the timely distribution of rental media. It supports more than 4,000 US corporate stores through this one location in addition to supporting thousands of additional stores across 22 countries.
Blockbuster continues to innovate its distribution processes and systems as necessary to remain a leader in the industry. Efficiency and accuracy are critical to Blockbuster’s distribution operations. The company had been using a bulk file transfer method (FTP) to track and manage key information related to its inventory, work-in-process, and container shipments but this method proved to be too slow for its needs – it was taking up to 20 minutes to transfer data files across the diverse set of warehouse equipment and the lag time often resulted in packaging errors and delayed shipments. The company also found it difficult to perform audits, view error information, and react to problems quickly. Blockbuster realized that it needed a far more resilient and reliable solution for the manipulation and processing of its core manufacturing and distribution data and selected Metastorm to replace its old FTP processing methods and gain real-time access to and assured delivery of data.
Solution
Using Metastorm Integration Manager for high-performance file management and data transfer, Blockbuster has automated, streamlined, and accelerated the way in which it manages the critical data that runs its distribution supply chain.
With transmission of data reduced to milliseconds, Metastorm Integration Manager provided Blockbuster with end-to-end visibility of data movement, immediate insight into errors, and the ability to transform the way in which it handles and acts upon information. The company now has the ability to perform real-time auditing and quality control checks using RF handheld scans at any point during the manufacturing and distribution process to validate that all of its processes are being followed and that packaging and shipment contents are accurate. This allows any errors to be corrected immediately before the finished product reaches its container.
When Blockbuster loads its trailers for shipping from the McKinney warehouse, its old FTP method didn’t provide the ability to track errors and sometimes it could take up to 40 minutes to be notified of an error in the boxes that were already loaded into the trailer. The trucks are packed so tightly that going back to correct anything after the fact is almost physically impossible – and any corrections cost a great deal of time and money. Metastorm Integration Manager now allows the company to perform real-time quality audits, make immediate changes, and implement stronger control measures as soon as the gaps are identified and before inventory is loaded onto the trucks. The company reports this benefit alone as delivering an enormous time and physical labor savings.
In addition, the company is also now able to quickly restore data if an interruption occurs. When the data is restored, it is still intact and clean and available before the product arrives on the other end at the next checkpoint.
Blockbuster has combined the strength of Metastorm Integration Manager with several additional applications and systems for fast, secure, and reliable communication across systems – including its host warehouse management application, Provia, as well as additional material handling equipment including its data management system, consolidation equipment, retail packaging system, carousel system, and GBI sorters.
Results
By implementing Metastorm Integration Manager, Blockbuster now has a highly automated and reliable means of processing the critical manufacturing and distribution data necessary to supply its stores worldwide. The company has seen a number of key benefits from the solution, including the ability to capture and transfer information more accurately and smoothly – reducing transfer times from 20 minutes to just seconds, and enabling them to conduct real-time audits and catch errors early in the packaging cycle. As a result, the company has realized a significant reduction in time and labor costs.
Additional benefits include a comprehensive audit control capability and real-time visibility into process performance metrics that validates its processes are working effectively and efficiently.
Most importantly, Blockbuster reports that the use of Metastorm Integration Manager has enabled the company to increase its order fulfillment rate to 99.9% – up from its previous measurement of 97%. For a single distribution center processing worldwide fulfillment of millions of video units a year, this is extremely significant. It means greater efficiency across its vast supply chain, and it means happier customers at the retail and consumer level.
Blockbuster is extremely pleased with its use of Metastorm and plans to continue to be proactive in taking the necessary steps to implement technologies that help the company remain an industry leader. One possible area would be to extend its use of Metastorm BPM to focus on human-centric process applications.
“Metastorm openly listened to our requirements and to the problems we were experiencing which was extremely important to us,” stated Bill Wissing, Senior Vice President of Distribution & Logistics, Blockbuster. “They stepped up to the plate and not only provided a solution to our problem but a relationship that will go beyond the implementation, giving us the confidence and a comfort level on which to enhance and extend our deployment of Metastorm technologies.”
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