Download PDF
The Mending Shed Cut the Time It Spends Picking 100 Orders from 2 Hours to 15 Minutes and Working on POS from 6 Hours to 1
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Inventory Management Systems
Applicable Industries
- Consumer Goods
Applicable Functions
- Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
The Challenge
The Mending Shed, an online store selling a wide variety of replacement parts, was struggling with its inventory management system. The company was constantly dealing with overages and shortages on inventory, leading to customer dissatisfaction when orders had to be put on back order. The lack of inventory tracking also resulted in misplaced items, leading to a significant amount of unrecoverable inventory. The company was spending more than six hours per day to create purchase orders for all of their vendors. The process of picking each order individually was time-consuming and inefficient, taking two hours per every 100 orders picked. Employees had to memorize where each item was stored in the warehouse, leading to long training periods before they became proficient in picking and processing orders.
About The Customer
The Mending Shed was founded in 1971 as a small repair shop fixing a variety of items from furniture to home appliances. Over the years, the company has expanded its capacity and now offers repair service on dozens of products. In 2001, they opened an online store, which has become an integral part of their business. The company sells a wide variety of replacement parts to the public, including parts for washers, dryers, dishwashers, hair dryers, curling irons, shavers, razors, power wheels, power tools, lawn equipment, and more. They have an international customer base.
The Solution
The company decided to implement Fishbowl Warehouse, a popular inventory management software for QuickBooks users. The software provided the features the company needed to manage its increasingly complex inventory needs. With Fishbowl, the company was able to continue using QuickBooks for their accounting needs while adding many new inventory control features. Fishbowl’s auto reorder points and auto purchase orders by vendor helped the company reduce the time it takes to create purchase orders from six hours to about one hour per day. The warehouse location, inventory management, and location sort order features enabled them to reduce the amount of time they spent picking orders from two hours to about 15 minutes per 100 orders. The company also integrated Fishbowl with their website to update the website in real time, allowing customers to see which products are in stock before placing an order.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Related Case Studies.
.png)
Case Study
Improving Vending Machine Profitability with the Internet of Things (IoT)
The vending industry is undergoing a sea change, taking advantage of new technologies to go beyond just delivering snacks to creating a new retail location. Intelligent vending machines can be found in many public locations as well as company facilities, selling different types of goods and services, including even computer accessories, gold bars, tickets, and office supplies. With increasing sophistication, they may also provide time- and location-based data pertaining to sales, inventory, and customer preferences. But at the end of the day, vending machine operators know greater profitability is driven by higher sales and lower operating costs.
Case Study
Series Production with Lot-size-1 Flexibility
Nobilia manufactures customized fitted kitchens with a lot size of 1. They require maximum transparency of tracking design data and individual processing steps so that they can locate a particular piece of kitchen furniture in the sequence of processes.
Case Study
American Eagle Achieves LEED with GE LED Lighting Fixtures
American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) was in the process of building a new distribution center. The AEO facility management team decided to look at alternate options for lighting layout that could provide energy and maintenance savings. AEO would need a full-time maintenance employee just to replace burned-out fluorescent tubes.
Case Study
Revolutionizing Rodent Control
From pet- and child-safe traps, to touch-free and live-catch rodent control solutions, Victor continues to stay committed to producing superior products that meet the varying needs of today’s pest control professionals. And, with a long standing history supporting customers in the food processing, service, and retail settings, Victor knew that strict regulations were costing organizations thousands of dollars in excess overhead trying to manage their rodent-control solutions. Trap inspections in these environments are often difficult and time consuming, requiring personnel to manually check a trap’s status multiple times per day, amounting to over six hours of manual labor. Victor is looking for an innovative way to increase operational efficiencies with the use of technology.
