Cotati Food Service Reduces Picking Errors by 70% with BFC Software
Cotati Food Service transformed its 42,000-square-foot warehouse operations by implementing BFC's Dakota WMS software, resulting in a 70% reduction in picking errors, improved traceability for their 3PL inventory, decreased labor, and enhanced operational efficiency through a seamless, phased rollout praised for its user-friendliness and scalability.
The Need
In 2018, Cotati Food Service (CFS) faced a common challenge experienced by many food distributors: manual warehouse operations reliant on spreadsheets. In an industry where precision and speed are vital to maintaining razor-thin margins, CFS needed to overhaul its 42,000-square-foot warehouse operations. The reliance on pen and paper was no longer viable in a landscape dominated by digitally savvy competitors.
CFS handled both standard food distribution and third-party logistics (3PL), so they needed a better way to manage traceability within their operations. After visiting a BFC customer and seeing the BFC software in action, CFS was convinced to make the switch.
“BFC software saved us so much time and resources while giving us way more insights into the operations and efficiency of our business than we ever had manually.”
— Ed Mayburn, President of Cotati Food Service
The Implementation
Cotati Food Service chose BFC for its straightforward implementation process and the company’s unparalleled industry knowledge. According to Ed Mayburn, President of Cotati Food Service, "The choice was simple, BFC's reputation for having a fast and hassle-free implementation made this an easy decision for us. Regardless of your size, or operational sophistication, BFC treats you the same."
CFS began by focusing on their inbound operations and soon after moved to optimizing their outbound operations, with Ed remaining engaged throughout the project. They implemented Dakota WMS to help address product traceability with 3PL and improve overall warehouse operations. "The phased approach made the transition seamless," Ed noted.
Since implementation, Cotati Food Service’s operations have become more efficient. They've reduced their errors, reduced their warehouse labor, and improved traceability across their entire 3PL inventory.
“We wanted a solution that was user-friendly, could handle our 3PL business, and could scale with us.”
— Ed Mayburn, President of Cotati Food Service
The BFC Difference
For the past 20 years, BFC has been building software to meet the unique needs of the food distribution industry. Their focus is on making warehouse operations smarter, ensuring efficiency, traceability, and profitability at every step.
Cotati Food Service achieved significant improvements:
- Reduced picking errors by 70%, outperforming industry norms.
- Reduced picker labor by 25%, despite handling higher volumes.
Related
FSMA 204
The content outlines BFC Software's decade-long expertise in food safety and traceability, emphasizing their Dakota WMS system's capabilities—such as barcode scanning and centralized data capture—to help food distributors comply with the FSMA 204 final rule on additional traceability records by the January 20, 2026 deadline, and provides multiple FDA and industry resources for deeper understanding and implementation guidance.
What a WMS Actually Does in Food Distribution (And Why Your ERP Can't Do It)
A Warehouse Management System (WMS) in food distribution is specialized software that optimizes and orchestrates every warehouse task—such as receiving, storage, picking, and loading—while managing perishability, temperature control, traceability, and regulatory compliance at a granular level that generic ERP systems cannot, thereby enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and scalability in food distribution operations.
Streamlining Success: How Our Sole Focus on Food Distributors Drives Peak Efficiency
BFC Software specializes exclusively in providing tailored technological solutions for food distributors, addressing their unique challenges such as fluctuating demand, regulatory compliance, and operational complexity to enhance efficiency, productivity, and seamless integration within the food distribution supply chain.
Professional Services
BFC Software’s professional services offer tailored implementation support, expert-led training, and industry-experienced guidance to food distribution warehouses, enabling customers to achieve over 99% inventory accuracy and an error rate as low as 1 in 8,500, thereby optimizing operations, reducing errors, ensuring compliance, and driving business growth.
BFC Analytics
BFC Analytics is a specialized analytics platform integrated with Dakota, a food distribution-specific warehouse management system, that transforms detailed transaction data into actionable insights through dashboards on warehouse health, customer service, and performance management, enabling distributors to identify operational issues like scan rate drops and productivity variances, implement targeted interventions such as retraining and re-slotting, and ultimately improve efficiency, accuracy, and cost savings in their high-volume, competitive food distribution operations.
BFC Customer Case Studies | Reduce Mispicks. Optimize Warehouse Labor.
BFC Software showcases customer case studies demonstrating significant improvements such as 99.92% inventory accuracy, 18% reduction in returns, and up to 70% reduction in picking errors through their Dakota WMS and Replenishment Optimizer solutions, with clients like City Line Foodservice, Cotati Food Service, URM Store, Génere Food Corp., Imperial Distributors, and Pet Food Experts reporting enhanced operational efficiency, reduced inventory, improved forecasting, and streamlined warehouse labor.