Location Accuracy, Customer-Specific Workflows, and Mock Recall Response Times Reduced From Hours to Minutes
How Valley Cold Storage & Transportation uses Footprint® WMS to manage food-grade inventory across two facilities, support approximately 90 customers with different requirements, and reduce mock recall response times from hours to minutes.
About the Client
Valley Cold Storage & Transportation operates 385,000 square feet of cold storage across two facilities in New Mexico, with more than 56,000 pallet positions and 38 dock doors. Both locations are SQF-certified and FDA-regulated. Across its operations, they serve approximately 90 customers, ranging from small businesses to multinational organizations, and store refrigerated and frozen food products from bulk agricultural commodities to retail-ready goods.
The Challenge
Before implementing Footprint® WMS, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation relied on a DOS-based warehouse system surrounded by highly manual processes. As they grew, that way of operating was no longer practical. The team needed accurate inventory locations, better recordkeeping, customer lot tracking and manufacturing-date information so it could know where product was stored, how long it had been there and when it would expire.
The Solution
With Footprint® WMS, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation has improved inventory accuracy, automated customer reporting, and strengthened compliance across its two cold storage facilities. The system enables fast, reliable product traceability, reducing mock recall times from hours to minutes, while supporting the unique storage, reporting, and billing needs of approximately 90 customers.
About Valley Cold Storage & Transportation
Serving 90 Customers With Different Requirements
Valley Cold Storage & Transportation operates 385,000 square feet of cold storage across two facilities in New Mexico, with more than 56,000 pallet positions and 38 dock doors.
Its 85,000-square-foot Las Cruces facility provides 10,292 pallet positions, while its 300,000-square-foot Santa Teresa facility provides 46,000 pallet positions and 35 dock doors. Santa Teresa is a bonded warehouse and USDA-certified import/export facility approved as a USDA Import House (I-House).
Both locations are SQF-certified and FDA-regulated. Across its operations, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation serves approximately 90 customers, ranging from small businesses to multinational organizations, and stores refrigerated and frozen food products from bulk agricultural commodities to retail-ready goods.
Those customers don’t all operate the same way. Storage requirements vary, as do billing models and schedules. Valley Cold Storage & Transportation bills customers weekly, twice monthly, or monthly and can charge by pallet, pound, or hundredweight.
Managing that variety while maintaining the inventory control and traceability required in food-grade warehousing demands a WMS built for more than basic inventory tracking.
The Challenge
When Location Control Depends on Memory
Before implementing Footprint® WMS, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation relied on a DOS-based warehouse system surrounded by highly manual processes.
Employees created inventory tags in Excel, printed them and physically attached them to product. Manual data entry created opportunities for errors. More importantly, the system had no location strategy.
When an employee put product away, that employee had to remember where it went.
If that person wasn’t available when the product needed to ship, finding inventory could become what Customer Service Manager Tori Lopez described as an “all-day search.”
As Valley Cold Storage & Transportation added customers and racked its facility to accommodate growth, that way of operating was no longer practical.
The team needed accurate inventory locations, better recordkeeping, customer lot tracking, and manufacturing-date information so it could know where product was stored, how long it had been there, and when it would expire.
The Solution
Building Customer Requirements Into the WMS
Valley Cold Storage & Transportation evaluated several warehouse management systems before selecting Datex Footprint® WMS.
Location control and recordkeeping were critical, but they also saw an opportunity to automate work that employees had previously handled manually, including customer reporting, warehouse receipts, bills of lading, and billing.
For a cold storage 3PL serving approximately 90 customers, one capability became particularly valuable: the ability to set up Footprint® WMS around the requirements of each customer.
“When we set up their parameters in the system, I can make it very specific to that customer. So it takes all the guesswork out for our warehouse team.”
Tori Lopez, Customer Service Manager, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation
Those parameters can guide suggested putaway and help warehouse employees follow the appropriate storage requirements for each account.
Valley Cold Storage & Transportation can also accommodate different billing structures across its customer base, including billing by pallet, pound, or hundredweight, and different billing schedules.
Instead of relying on employees to remember how every customer should be handled, they can put those requirements into Footprint® WMS.
The Results
Know Where Product Is and Have the Records to Prove It
With Footprint® WMS, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation has strengthened the inventory records at the center of its cold storage operation.
The company can maintain inventory locations, customer lot numbers, and manufacturing dates while using suggested putaway to help direct product to the appropriate storage location.
Lopez says those capabilities have improved accuracy across receiving, shipping and billing.
“Footprint has improved our overall customer experience with more accurate receiving to more accurate shipping and accurate billing.”
Tori Lopez, Customer Service Manager, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation
Customer reporting has changed as well. Reports that Lopez previously had to prepare and send manually can now be generated automatically as part of the order process.
For a business supporting approximately 90 customers with different operational and billing requirements, that means less dependence on manual follow-up and more consistency in how customer requirements are handled.
Mock Recalls: From Hours to Minutes
The strongest proof of control comes when Valley Cold Storage & Transportation needs to trace product.
Both facilities are SQF-certified and FDA-regulated, and the company undergoes annual internal and customer audits. They also conduct mock recalls regularly.
Footprint® WMS gives Valley Cold Storage & Transportation the records it needs to trace inventory without relying on manual searches.
The impact is measurable:
Mock recall response time has dropped from hours to minutes.
“Datex has been paramount in helping us maintain our records for compliance, whether it’s for SQF, FDA, or our customer audits. Traceability is unmatched.”
Tori Lopez, Customer Service Manager, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation
For cold storage operators, faster traceability is not simply a software feature. It means being able to locate the right product and produce the right records when customers, auditors, or food safety processes require them.
Supporting 90 Customers Without One-Size-Fits-All Processes
Valley Cold Storage & Transportation serves approximately 90 customers, from small businesses to multinational organizations, with different storage procedures, reporting needs and billing model.
Footprint® WMS allows Valley Cold Storage & Transportation to establish unique requirements at the customer level, helping warehouse employees execute work consistently while giving the business the flexibility to serve customers differently.
For a 3PL operation, that matters because adding a customer doesn’t simply mean adding more inventory. It can mean adding another set of storage, reporting, and billing requirements that the warehouse needs to execute correctly.
One WMS for the Next Facility and the One After That
Valley Cold Storage & Transportation is now looking beyond its two New Mexico facilities.
The company plans to expand into additional states and connect future facilities through Footprint® WMS, while centralizing billing through its Las Cruces home office.
“We’d like to add more facilities in different states, so we want to increase our size. We want to be able to link them all up using Footprint WMS.”
Tori Lopez, Customer Service Manager, Valley Cold Storage & Transportation
The same capabilities the company uses today, including location control, customer-specific parameters, traceability, automated reporting and billing, can provide a consistent operational foundation as they add locations.
Key Takeaways
- Hours to minutes: Valley Cold Storage & Transportation reduced mock recall response times from hours to minutes with stronger inventory records and traceability.
- 385,000 square feet under management: Footprint® WMS supports two cold storage facilities with more than 56,000 pallet positions.
- Approximately 90 customers: Customer-specific parameters help Valley Cold Storage & Transportation manage different storage, workflow, and billing requirements within one WMS.
- Inventory employees can find: System-directed location management replaced a process that could leave employees searching all day for product.
- Food-grade records at hand: Lot numbers, manufacturing dates, and inventory records support SQF, FDA, and customer audit requirements across controlled environment operations.
- Billing built for 3PL complexity: Valley Cold Storage & Transportation accommodates different billing schedules and charges by pallet, pound, or hundredweight.
- Ready for additional facilities: Valley Cold Storage & Transportation plans to connect future locations through Footprint® WMS and centralize billing through its home office.
