The Company
Hideaway Beds – Wall Bed Company offers the Latest Designs wall beds. Wall Beds have been around since 1918 in American and Europe. The company ships their products to approximately 100 retailers in Australia as well as taking online orders directly from individual consumers.
Key Benefits
- Order accuracy increases from 80% to 99.9 %
- Order picking times reduced by one third
- Real-time visibility into warehouse inventory Levels.
- Unit items shipped per day up from 50 to 200.
The Challenge
Hideaway managed 8,000 square-foot warehouse using a paper based system. All the assembly items required to make final products i.e. beds are done in the warehouse. Lots of subassembly items come into the warehouse required to assemble the end items. The real challenge is the lack of system since most of the picking and receiving of assembly items are done using Microsoft Office, in which manual logs were kept noting the location and movement of goods throughout the facility. When it came time to provide reports for the senior management team, the reports were built manually on an excel spreadsheet- a laborious and potentially error prone process. This cumbersome process results into late orders and deteriorating customer service levels. A system is needed to streamline the logistics situation and improve the bottom-line profits.
The Solution
Naxtor warehouse management solution (WMS) was selected to solve Company challenges.
“Several systems were explored during the initial search for a perfect fit,” explains Von, Managing Director. “We are not a large company and the cost /benefit analysis couldn’t justify a huge investment, so cost played a considerable role in our decision to go ahead with Naxtor WMS".
With the implementation of Naxtor WMS , Hideaway immediately saw an increase in productivity, processing picking and receiving of assembly items were done in half the time it had taken previously. Warehouse staffs were equipped with wireless handhelds to pick order for assembling. Once the final product is ready it is then shipped to customer and all phases of their assembly processes are thereby recorded into the warehouse management system. There was no longer a need for paper recording or manual data entry. Using RF handhelds and barcode technology Naxtor WMS allow Hideaway to track and trace every item as it is received, put-away , picked and shipped. Each member of the warehouse staff became an expert on stock and assembly location and warehouse processes.
Hideaway beds at times also required generating their own barcodes, and with Naxtor WMS with a click of a button the application generates EAN32 and many generic barcode read by most of the barcode reader. The printed labels are then attached to the incoming assembly items ready to be put away to their respective locations.
“Having the warehouse system in place means that instead of product location and warehouse layout sitting in someone’s head, it’s now in the system, and that makes it much more transferable so that every staff member is an expert,” says Von
After only three week installation and training process, the warehouse was able to leverage the full capabilities of Naxtor WMS. The company was able to equip warehouse staff with PSC falcon line or wireless data collection and printing technologies.
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