By Jill Brimeyer

Kawasaki bills itself as The Good Times™ company, but its products have something in common beyond fun: a driving need for speed. Whether hitting the trail on a sportbike or thundering down the highway in a cruiser, navigating an ATV or tearing through the waterways on a Jet SKI®, Kawasaki's customers are ready to move.

And so, now, is Kawasaki. In early 2000, Kawasaki Motors Corp. USA jumped onto the digital highway to bring its customers online ordering of vehicle accessories, clothing and gear. With the launch of buykawasaki.com, the motorized recreational products company became the first in its industry to launch a fully supported e-commerce solution.

"On the Internet, if your order process isn't easy and accurate, or if you can't deliver the right product on a timely basis, you've lost that customer," said Roger Peterson, vice president of information systems for KMC. "That's why we partnered with 13 other companies to design and implement buykawasaki.com."

Potential Kawasaki merchandise buyers can log onto the Web site and be guided through photos and descriptions of the accessories and clothing to accompany a Kawasaki vehicle – everything but the vehicle itself. Original equipment parts catalogs also are available online for the majority of Kawasaki vehicles, directing customers to visit local dealer locations for parts purchases.

That means a customer browsing on the web for some bells and whistles to accompany a JET SKI ® watercraft is able to fill a virtual shopping cart to the brim with fluorescent decals, sand anchor bags, tow ropes, fenders, seat covers, electrical accessories, and even wet suits and water bottles. Unique gift purchases such as leather jackets are also available.  Once the customer checks out, notice of the purchase is electronically spirited to Kawasaki's e-commerce warehouse. 

Getting it there is Half the Fun

The real speed and agility of buykawasaki.com is found in Kawasaki's warehouse.  The majority of order lines are fulfilled at the company's Atlanta, Ga. distribution center with cross-ship support from the Irvine, Calif. and Grand Rapids, Mich. facilities.  Kawasaki is concluding a pilot of a wireless system designed by leading data collection hardware manufacturer Intermec Technologies Corp. The system verifies orders electronically as they're packed using a network of bar codes, scanners, computerized packing and order slips and Pack Verify software created by Circa Information Technologies Inc.

Kawasaki already had processes in place to enable quick shipment – 99.8 percent of orders are shipped the same day the invoice is received in the distribution center. Most orders arrive at the customer's doorstep within five business days. But with its emerging e-commerce strategy, Kawasaki required a warehouse management solution as high tech as its ordering process.  

Up until that point, the Atlanta center had relied on stationary, wired PCs and terminals to track inventory. But the company had grown considerably since it first opened its doors in an old Chicago meat warehouse in 1966. At the dawn of the millennium, with revenues topping $1 billion annually and a dealer network more than 1,500 strong, Kawasaki knew that it was due for a tune-up -- and it saw wireless data collection technology as the tool that could propel its warehouses to the speed of e-business. Collecting and transmitting bar code data wirelessly had the potential to reduce manual data entry, improve packing accuracy, and create an electronic record of order details on the mainframe that is visible and usable company-wide.

Explained Andrew Watson, director of customer development at Circa: "The wireless solution was an integral piece of the whole e-commerce package, ensuring that Kawasaki could successfully deliver the correct items to customers rapidly and on time."

When Kawasaki took its ordering process online in April 2000, the company's Atlanta site, as well as distribution sites in Irvine, Calif., and Grand Rapids, Mich., "went live" using wireless bar code technology to automate the pack verify function in the warehouse.

The result is a system that marries the best aspects of hand-packed orders with computerized checks and balances.

Flying without Wires

"After a product has been picked, it's brought over to the packing station in a tub, where it's scanned and recorded by the Intermec system as it is being boxed," explained Ed Hauschild, manager of Kawasaki's parts distribution center in Irvine, Calif. When the employee is done, he or she enters into the keypad that the box is complete. The computer either proceeds on to the next order or sounds a warning beep to indicate an incomplete shipment and brings up a screen that lists outstanding part numbers or quantities. Once each order is complete and double-checked for accuracy, the information is printed onto a packing slip to be placed in each box. Finally, a duplicate record is sent back to the mainframe indicating that the shipment has been packed and verified. 

To accomplish this, each Kawasaki facility has been outfitted with a 2.4 GHz data network consisting of wireless stationary terminals; handheld terminals for wireless data collection; and access points to collect wireless signals and pass them along via Kawasaki's local area network hub.  Because security is paramount at Kawasaki, the company's wireless network draws on all of the latest tools for information security available for Intermec equipment.

"The Kawasaki network is largely token ring based, so the access points are in the ceiling areas of the warehouse, linked to a network and ultimately connected back to the data centers," explained Watson. "The access points communicate wirelessly with the terminals at the pack station, so those stations can be moved around the building and reconfigured on the fly."

The result, according to Hauschild, is a system that allows greater assurance that the content of each carton is correct – without increasing labor costs.

"Wireless terminals allow real-time transactions on location as opposed to manually recording information and then batch-keying the information from a stationary location," Hauschild said. "We noticed immediate improvement in the accuracy of information being updated, along with productivity gains from reduced travel time."

Kawasaki also benefits from the insight the new system brings into the company's own processes and customers – knowledge that's critical to a sound e-business strategy. Before high technology came to Kawasaki's warehouse, the company simply couldn't capture data at the level needed to keep up with the speed of e-business.

"Before, Kawasaki didn't have the detail, and wasn't able to validate it, record it, and make it available on the mainframe," Watson said. "Today, the company not only has increased accuracy, but is gaining management insight into the shipment process."

When Kawasaki completes testing of the pack verify system in early 2001, it will be placed into full production at all three of the company's distribution centers, Hauschild said.

Destination: Customer Delight

The biggest winners in all of this, believes Hauschild, are the people who receive Kawasaki merchandise at their doorstep within a week of their order.

 "We're now able to include an accurate invoice/packing list in each box sent to the customer," Hauschild said. "This increases shipping accuracy, and improves customer service by providing more available information about each shipment. Our biggest payback in all of this is in customer satisfaction."

And at Kawasaki, customers are more than satisfied. They're positively moved.