Improving Processes Impacting Generations

One Generation Away is a non-profit food distribution network that provides rescued food to the homeless, people caught in natural disasters and other types of needy families throughout Tennessee, Alabama and Florida. They have several warehouses that receive food and distribute food in the three states. They purchase food from retail/wholesale outlets and also rescue food (discarded food) from all types of retail food stores to redistribute to the needy.

While they’re busy serving others, at times, operational and business needs were put to the wayside as their growth exceeded their systems.

One Generation Away also had the opportunity to partner with DoorDash to deliver food to those in need but needed more infrastructure to identify those needs and show drivers the best route.

Our work began with One Generation Away to help them streamline their organization and implement processes to make them more efficient and provide transparent financials.

It became clear in our work with One Generation Away that they needed a partner who understood enterprise resource planners (ERPs) and could help them implement Oracle’s NetSuite as a solution, in addition to assisting them to overhaul their systems for inventory orders, delivery, etc.

We updated their accounting practices, integrated NetSuite to manage their finances and inventory and helped them comply with regulations and be accountable to donors and partners. We helped One Generation Away create a new user intake workflow and paired that with customized backend website tools. These website enhancements streamlined the process of organizing user data as well as enabled the organization to serve more people in the community through their partnership with DoorDash.

Finally, we created a system that processed mobile receipts by truck drivers, stored food stock by SKU, bin and location in their warehouses, and picked, packed and shipped food shipment orders several times a day. We created simple scanning capabilities to make it easier for warehouse workers.

All of these solutions are tied to their ERP, allowing them to cost items and an inventory system that uses a par level to calculate reorder points and issue purchase orders automatically.

Integrating NetSuite and these various systems and developing a system that allowed for a DoorDash partnership, gave One Generation Away the flexibility to continue doing what they do best—helping communities across the country. With greater transparency, they were able to more effectively communicate with donors and keep better track of inventory. Because of this opportunity to scale, One Generation Away is able to expand into three to five more states.

ERP solutions are an excellent way to streamline a business, and we’re able to customize Oracle’s NetSuite to fit our clients’ unique needs.