Temperatures have finally warmed up, the kids are out of school, it's light out past 9 p.m. (at least here in Ohio), and grilling season is upon us --- the signs are all here that summer is in full swing. While it's true that summertime is for vacations, picnics, and Sunday afternoon naps (again, at least here in Ohio), it's also a great time to take that "seventh inning stretch" and think about some systems retooling you'd like to get done before the fall.

We get questions about batch shipping processes more often these days as more shippers are looking for creative ways to do more with less. The basic idea of batch shipping seems simple enough: automate the major pack and ship steps across "sets of shipments" to get orders out the door faster with less user intervention. Dig a little deeper, however, and you'll find that different businesses have very different ideas about what constitutes a batch, where ERP integration fits into a batch process, and how the shipping automation should work.