Rampart Supply has been working with PathGuide for 20 years to improve the company’s vendor-managed inventory program, saving hundreds of man-hours. 

Since its establishment in 1968 in Colorado, Rampart Supply has emerged as one of the country’s most recognizable wholesale distributors of commercial and residential plumbing, pipe and hydronic heating products. 

The organization has grown significantly over the last 55 years, with more than 500,000 square feet of stocked shelves, three showrooms and more than 250 employees in the state of Colorado alone. However, that growth came with a unique set of challenges. 

Rampart Supply participates in a vendor-managed inventory (VMI) arrangement, which allows it to store its products at customers’ sites while still owning them. Buyers don’t need to travel to Rampart stores or warehouses to gain access to the company’s products. All they have to do is go to the facility where the products are stored, take what they need and start their day of work. 

Despite its effectiveness, Rampart’s VMI system was in need of fine-tuning. The company needed a more efficient way of tracking how many products were being used, so that it could properly bill its clients. 

The inventory-management program used to be done manually, for eight or nine different customers. During that time, a Rampart salesperson would go to a customer’s facility, count the products used, return to the office and manually track the amount of merchandise used, a process that could sometimes take two to four hours. 

To streamline the inventory process, Rampart Supply enlisted the help of PathGuide Technologies, a provider of warehouse management system (WMS) software and related applications. 

Rampart and PathGuide estimated that implementation of the latter’s VMI software would take three to six months. That was a marked improvement over the 12 months or more that other potential providers had quoted. 

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Once selected, PathGuide provided Rampart with access to software that effectively takes the two- to four-hour tracking process and shortens it to half an hour at most. According to Richard Snapp, IT director for Rampart Supply, a large chunk of that half-hour is spent driving to the facility where the products are held. 

With PathGuide’s technology, Rampart employees can visit facilities, scan products, track how many have been used, then automatically bill their customers. 

Rampart says profits rose significantly upon adopting PathGuide’s VMI system, driven by a 10% increase in sales in the year following integration of the tool. 

Snapp says further collaboration between the two companies is a possibility, with the prospect of “further opportunities for PathGuide to present its products [to Rampart] on a larger scale.” 

“I like their toolset,” Snapp adds. “I like their focus as a company on what they’re trying to do. They’re very agile in their development, whereas, in the wholesale distribution software landscape, that is not the norm.” 

Resource Links:

Rampart Supply, https://www.rampartsupply.com/home

PathGuide Technologies, https://www.pathguide.com/