Established in 2021 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Arcadia Cold Storage & Logistics specializes in providing third-party, temperature-controlled handling, storage, distribution and value-added services to the food industry. The logistics service provider (LSP) aims to establish “The New Age of Cold Chain” by designing and deploying modern facilities and providing innovative solutions to become the most customer-centric cold chain organization in the U.S. Currently, it has nine cold storage facilities across the U.S.
Success Story
Arcadia Cold
Transportation Management, Warehouse Labor, Warehouse Management, Panasonic Edge
Arcadia Cold builds supply chain resilience and sustainability with AI and ML
The company
The business challenge
Arcadia Cold wanted to establish itself quickly as a leader in the competitive world of temperature-controlled logistics. To do so, it had to build state-of-the-art facilities, hire the best employees and deploy the best technology—all from scratch. The ‘start-up’ company sought trusted partners who understood the challenges of cold chain logistics—and could quickly deliver the advanced technologies needed to address them.
The Blue Yonder solution
With help from Blue Yonder, implementation partner Argano, and Snowflake, Arcadia Cold ushered in “The New Age of Cold Chain,” running on digital processes and advanced technology across its supply chain. Blue Yonder’s industry-leading cloud-native solutions in warehouse management, warehouse labor management, and transportation management helped Arcadia Cold gain real-time visibility, improve efficiency, and build resilience and sustainability into its operations from the start. As a result, this cold storage and logistics leader was able to launch five new facilities in just 18 months between 2023 and 2024—and is poised for future growth, with nine warehouses already in operation and the aim for 26 facilities by 2036.
“Our business model means we act as an extension of our customers’ supply chains. We wanted to provide our customers with only the best technology, so we chose Blue Yonder to help us run all our operations. It allows us to apply a digital-first and cloud-native strategy, implement one common set of integrated solutions, and adopt proven best practices to improve employee training and ultimately, efficiency.”
–Christopher Lafaire, Chief Information Officer, Arcadia Cold
Arcadia Cold is using Panasonic Edge products as a white glove service to manage its hardware technologies within its warehouse operations.
Arcadia Cold: disrupting cold-chain logistics with digital technology
Cold chain storage and transportation are complex activities. However, as a new competitor in this LSP space, Arcadia Cold had an advantage: It could build its operations from the ground up based on leading-edge, scalable, digital technologies and processes that simplify complexities.
‘ArcadiaOne’ – web portal built on Snowflake AI Data Cloud
Blue Yonder and Argano helped Arcadia deploy the Blue Yonder Platform, which utilizes the Snowflake AI Data Cloud as its central intelligence hub for its operations. Linking all Blue Yonder applications and its ERP system, this serves as the backbone to the ‘Arcadia One’ web portal. The portal provides real-time, comprehensive visibility and orchestration of end-to-end operations, whilst facilitating appointment scheduling, billing, and electronic messaging for customers. The portal provides a single source of truth.
Advanced AI and ML technology enables real-time visibility and responsiveness
Blue Yonder’s warehouse management, warehouse labor management, and transportation management solutions helped Arcadia Cold launch five new warehouses — in Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Georgia and Pennsylvania — in a record-setting 18 months between 2023 and 2024. The company also gained a competitive edge by providing customers with real-time visibility into their processes, inventory and shipments. The result? Arcadia Cold quickly became a force to reckon with in the U.S. temperature-controlled logistics market, onboarding new customers every day.
Blue Yonder’s solutions provide a modern UI that helps Arcadia Cold maximize the accuracy and efficiency of ongoing processes such as receiving, picking, and scheduling employees, trucks, and other assets. Advanced AI and ML technology alerts Arcadia Cold to disruptions and exceptions in real time, creating a resilient supply chain that meets cost and service targets even as conditions change. It helps the company weigh complex trade-offs associated with third-party cold-chain logistics to make optimal decisions consistently.
Warehouse labor productivity boosted by 9%
By deploying Blue Yonder’s Labor Management solution, Arcadia Cold witnessed a 9% increase in labor productivity through optimized task allocation and real-time performance tracking. It also enhanced operational efficiency through streamlined processes and real-time insights. Faster and deeper insights into direct and indirect labor times improved resource management and accelerated operational adjustments to maximize productive work time. Lafaire summarizes this entire deployment as ‘a game-changer!’
Supply chain optimization supports sustainability efforts
In addition to cost and service outcomes, Arcadia Cold also considers sustainability a key strategic priority. By optimizing routes, reducing energy consumption, and enabling better space utilization, Arcadia Cold can provide industry leading service levels, control costs, and be a conscientious environmental steward.
“As a start-up company, we could embed sustainability from the start in our business processes and technology choices. Blue Yonder’s solutions gave us the ability to start digital. We do everything digital — from taking pictures of inbound trucks and showing our customers how we receive their products to how we ship their products. There’s no paper waste. Blue Yonder provides us and our customers with a single view of our data so we can see all their information in one place. Everything is documented in a system for ease of access and waste reduction,” explains Lafaire.
A Cognitive future
Over the last 2.5 years, Arcadia Cold has implemented Blue Yonder WMS at nine of its facilities (ranging from distribution hubs to port-side storage facilities that receive products by ocean freight from Australia and Brazil).
Over the years, several versions of the Blue Yonder WMS have been used, and Arcadia Cold is now planning to standardize on the latest Cognitive version. The LSP plans to take full advantage of the Blue Yonder Platform's most advanced integration capabilities and its embedded Agentic AI.
“We have been an early adopter of the cognitive version of WMS and have worked collaboratively with Blue Yonder to help make advancements. A huge advantage of the cognitive WMS is that it uses Snowflake as its single data source, ensuring our employees and the AI agents we are starting to deploy share a single source of truth. Multiple databases and data replication will soon become a problem of the past,” said Lafaire.
Arcadia Cold is currently implementing the new WMS at its first site before rolling out to the other eight sites.
Agentic AI
Arcadia Cold expects significant productivity improvements from AI agents native to the new cognitive solution.
“There is a lot of talk about Agentic AI. I always start by defining the end game for any project. I’m expecting major advances in staff training. I believe only 30-40% of the information is retained when onboarding new associates; we’re going to change that with AI agents. These are being deployed to guide new associates not only during their introductions but also throughout their careers here at Arcadia Cold,” said Lafaire.
Additionally, Arcadia Cold is working with Blue Yonder to develop its Warehouse Ops Agent, which will utilize AI to facilitate supervisor changeovers. Agents will provide accurate insights into those pending priorities that need to be carried over from shift to shift to ensure continuity of service throughout the day. Agents will also be used to help balance staffing between Arcadia’s frozen and cold storage rooms. Staffing needs vary with demand and the number of people clocking in at each facility at the start of each shift, which means Arcadia Cold needs to be agile to rebalance demand and supply to meet multiple customer service level agreements. Rebalancing staffing and workloads will be based on clear recommendations from AI Agents to maximize the productivity of each work session.
Arcadia Cold is rapidly emerging as a disruptive force in cold chain logistics and plans to continue expanding in strategic locations across North America to have 26 facilities by 2036 — and Blue Yonder is proud to be an active partner on its ambitious journey.
Data sharing without the hassles
The Blue Yonder Data Share App simplifies data integration for Blue Yonder customers using Snowflake, regardless of their cloud provider or region. Cutting down on the complexity of data pipelines also accelerates time to value and minimizes operational overhead, so teams can concentrate on strategic initiatives. Available through a private listing in the Snowflake Marketplace, the Data Share App makes data-driven decisions even more efficient and scalable.
