A moving experience

Close collaboration with FedEx has enabled Abcam to streamline its service for delivering antibodies worldwide

Requests for antibodies for research purposes are increasing on a global scale. Seeing this demand rise, and realising from personal experience that it is extremely frustrating sourcing these products from out-of-date catalogues from vast numbers of suppliers, Jonathan Milner, a post-doctoral researcher at Cambridge University, saw an opportunity to provide an extensive range of antibodies to scientists in hospitals, universities, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies around the world using the internet.He took the plunge and founded Abcam in 1998, creating a web-based ordering system that offers researchers comprehensive and up-to-date datasheets, fast delivery and helpful customer support.

Despite the success of Abcam since its inception, technical director Jim Warwick felt that there was room for improvement in terms of the ordering and distribution processes required for this fast growing business.

Dealing with orders used to be a totally manual process. Customer details were taken from Abcam's orders database and manually copied on to FedEx Air Waybills. Air Waybill numbers, in turn, were entered manually into Abcam's system and matched to the order number. This process was very time-consuming.

So Warwick turned to customer technology at FedEx for advice on how to improve the ordering and dispatch process. One of his main concerns was having extra software added onto Abcam's main system. After discussing the requirements and current frustrations with the process, it was decided that the entire process could be automated without the need for this, saving countless man-hours each day.

In just a few weeks, Abcam and FedEx had developed a system that interfaces directly with the FedEx Ship Server in Memphis. Following testing and FedEx validation, the system was soon up and running. The solution adds an extra button marked 'FedEx' onto Abcam's web-based order-processing system. This sends shipping data to the FedEx Ship Server in Memphis where an Air Waybill number is assigned and an image of the Air Waybill itself is sent back to Abcam's internal system within milliseconds.

The customer is then e-mailed with tracking details for the package. Essentially, by clicking on the FedEx button, users at Abcam can access all of FedEx's services, thereby providing complete online control of the entire order and distribution of antibodies.

access solutions

'On the face of it, it is just one extra button, but this essentially provides the user with access to the range of FedEx's distribution products and services,' said Julian Kleiser, managing director. 'I can honestly say that Abcam provides one of the truest examples of integration of the FedEx Ship Manager API. It has been so effective in changing a heavily manual and tremendously inefficient procedure, into a highly streamlined process.'

To put it into context, before the integration of the FedEx Ship Manager API solution Abcam would process 25-30 orders a day. Now each order takes approximately one second; a saving of 10-15 minutes on the processing of each and every order.

There is also no external software for employees at either Abcam or FedEx to manage or update. In fact, since the integration two years ago, FedEx customer support hasn't had to revisit or phone Abcam because of technical issues, highlighting how effective the implementation has been.

criteria met

The FedEx Ship Manager API solution met all of Abcam's key criteria:

No need for new or additional software on its system

No need for a dedicated phone line

No need for manual input of data and upload to FedEx systems

The opportunity for Abcam's own development team to fully customise the system

The key benefit for the customers is:

A faster, more streamlined order processing system, and greater shipping capacity: shipments have increased by more than 300% without the need for additional manpower

Abcam's small number of order processing staff now have a flexible order processing and logistics system that is the equal of large organisations

'Using the API from FedEx effectively gave us the keys to the FedEx internet shipping engine in Memphis,' said Warwick. 'Certainly we had to do some of our own development, but at the end of the day we have a solution that is exactly how we want it to be, fully integrated with our internal processes.'