Challenges

Rapidly growing packaging and MRO products distributor with two physical warehouses needed to become more efficient in their every day warehousing functions from receiving, put-away, picking, shipping to inventory counts.

With increasing amounts of time spent looking for items and performing cycle counts, Crawford needed a system to track inventory movements in real time and directly integrate into their VISUAL ERP system.

Solution

The company purchased RF Plus™ for VISUAL.The rollout and plan was as following:

• 12 ruggedized handheld computers

• Wireless network

• Barcode label printers

• Phase 1 Head Office deployment consisting of Inbound, IBT, and Picking/Shipping

• Phase 2 Brampton warehouse, adding inventory count process

Keys to the project’s success:

• Use of RF Plus’ alias support function, Crawford was able to quickly add supplier’s UPC codes as alias part numbers into VISUAL. This saved having to re-label incoming product.

• Scanning of the warehouse bin location barcode at put-away, transfers, and picking provided 100% assurance on location of product at all times.

• Mobile devices made it convenient to perform real-time updating to VISUAL for all transactions.

• Inter-branch Transfers (IBT) in RF Plus improved accountability and tracking of product movements between facilities

• Training. Users need more than one training session to get it right.

Results

• 98% pick accuracy

• 95% of orders processed by next day

• Improved inventory visibility and accuracy by over 100%

• In phase 2, the second facility was up and running within 3 days.