Bay Area wine importer shifts to automated logistics solution

Bay Area wine importer shifts to automated logistics solution Agistix, a Redwood City, Calif.-based provider of logistics software, said Monday it has completed deployment of a shipping automation system for high-end wine importer, the Henry Wine Group.
   Headquartered in Benicia, near the San Francisco Bay Area, the Henry Wine Group moves more than a million cases of wine annually, and is one of the largest high-end wine importers, distributors, and brokers in the United States.
   The Agistix package has allowed HWG to transition from manual processes to full software-based automation of shipping, invoicing and product tracking. The system has allowed HWG to realize a savings of 11 percent to 18 percent by reducing the number of carriers the firm uses by more than half.
   'Controlling all aspects of the movement of our wine imports is critical to the company's financial success and competitive position,' said Don Locke, chief financial officer of the Henry Wine Group. 'Agistix has allowed us to tightly control costs at the same time that we increase the volume of wine we source from abroad. Automated processes mean that managers can easily track shipments and make decisions quickly based on real-time information. And we have been able to achieve all this without increasing staff size.'
   HWG has grown rapidly through recent acquisitions, increasing import activity more than five-fold since 2001.