RedPrairie Review

RedPrairie was founded in 1975. During the 1990s and 2000s, Red Prairie acquired several WMS, TMS and manufacturing software vendors. Red Prairie was owned by Francisco Partners, a private equity firm, but in late 2012 RedPrairie and JDA merged to create a global supply chain management software company. The merger combined JDA’s supply chain planning, merchandising and price optimization systems with RedPrairie’s systems for supply chain execution, workforce management, store operations and e-Commerce. The scope of this supply chain software review consists solely of RedPrairie's business software unless otherwise noted.

Vertical Markets

RedPrairie’s customers are small to large companies in Aerospace, Automotive, Consumer Goods, Retail, Food and Beverage.

Supply Chain Software Products

Red Prairie only develops and sells Supply Chain Management systems:

Performance Management
Warehouse Management Systems
Transportation Management Systems
Inventory Management
Workforce Management

SCM Features

Software Architecture and Cross Application Solutions – E2 Business Process Platform is Red Prairie’s SOA with the following features:

IT Deployments and Upgrades
Event Manager
Application Integration
Business Process Flows
Common User Interfaces

Sales and Operation Planning – Not Supported.

Demand Management – Support is limited to forecasting replenishment levels and managing promotions for retailers, build-to-order for manufacturers and order fulfillment for distribution.

Order Fulfillment strategies look at:

Sourcing from Multiple Warehouses and Suppliers Sites
Expected Vendor Receipts
User Define Algorithms for Services, Inventory Status, Cost and Constraints

Supply Management:

Strategic Network Planning – Not Supported.

Distribution Planning – Not Supported.

Replenishment – Red Prairie’s WMS replenishment is by product, location and slotting.

Vendor Managed Inventory – Not Supported.

Procurement Management – Not Supported.

Warehouse Management

Yard Management – Features include:

Equipment Check-in and Out
Equipment Movement
Scheduling Dock Doors and Personal
Web-based Calendar for Appointment Scheduling

Inbound Processing – Pallet and carton auto-identification is scanned and tied to supplier ASNs. Retail features support put-to-store and flow through processing. Put-a-ways are directed to bin locations based on user defined policies in Warehouse Tasking application.

Outbound Processing – Out bound order features include:

Unlimited Number of User Defined Picking Methods
Appointment Scheduling and Dock Door Management
Shipment Documentation including Manifest and Bill of Lading

Cross Docking – Inbound goods can be directed to outbound process. Unplanned opportunity cross docks can be evaluated and detected during the inbound process.

Value Added Services – Value Added Services are defined and managed by Warehouse Tasking Application.

Storage – RedPrairie provides special handling requirements for tracking: Lot Numbers, Serial Numbers, Genealogy, Country of origin and Hazardous Materials.

Slotting features optimize the storage of goods and supports multiple user defined strategies.

Transportation Management:

Planning – Features include what if analysis during the bidding process to help determine the optimal allocations of carriers. Shipments are evaluated and optimized for mode, routes and consolidation.

Dispatch – Based on load, pickups, modes of transportation, and route optimization, the dispatcher performs the following:

Assigns carriers to routes
Produces Shipment Documents
Generates EDI transactions

Freight Charges and Settlements – Freight invoices are matched before payments are made. Auditing features enable user defined limits and tolerances on charges. Freight cost is allocated down to the order SKU level through configurable algorithms.

Fleet Management – Not Supported.

Supplier Relationship Management – Not Supported.

Customer Relationship Management – Not Supported.

Supply Chain Software Strengths and Weaknesses

RedPrairie’s strengths are in WMS and TMS, along with a software architecture that supports the critical function for integrating third party and custom applications. Their WMS and TMS products are best in class enterprise software solutions and should be considered for any SCM initiatives reviewing WMS and TMS.

Other than some basic inventory management features, Red Prairie only supports supply chain execution functions. The inventory planning is for short-term horizons and lacks the structure for full featured supply management solutions.

If a fully integrated SCM solution is high on the requirements, RedPrairie may be at a disadvantage, because of the cost and time to integrate and support the total application solution. However, with the JDA merger, the combined applications are undergoing slow but steady integration which is expanding the supply chain software suite considerably.

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