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.

The Company
A Sydney based company is a distributor of books, artifacts, cards, antiques and other contemporary gift items and house wares. The company ships their products to approximately 700 retailers around the world as well as taking online orders directly from individual consumers.

Key Benefits

• Order accuracy increases from 70% to 99.9 %
• Order picking time down from 30 minutes to 4 minutes
• Real-time visibility into warehouse inventory Levels.
• Unit items shipped per day up from 300 to 1000.

The Challenge
New Age & Beyond managed a 10,000 square foot warehouse using a paper based system. Ten warehouse staff had to rely on their memory to find products needed to find their orders, and inventory tracking was done using MYOB Accounting System.

“Everything in our warehouse was categorized by product type and the order fillers had to search through the aisles for products similar to what they were trying to ship,” says Jason . “Relying on our staff to locate product by memory proved to be an ineffective way to operate. We recognized that we needed a system that would help us better manage our inventory and increase customer service levels”.

As the business grew, the manual system began to pose significant threats- orders typically took 30 minutes to pick and order accuracy was measured at about 70%. The company started to struggle with inventory control issues, with no accurate way of tracking the many, and varied products company’s distributes. Safety stock control was a serious problem and back order logs were created.

Not just that most products like gifts and artifacts are difficult to distinguish. Very often the size, shape and even color of the products are the same, the only marked differences being wording and unique barcodes. Because manual paper based system does not allow for picking by barcode , staff members were struggling to find the products the needed to fill the orders- This challenge was negatively affecting both revenue and customer service levels.

With no electronic way of tracking the picking lists once they had been printed, the company was also challenged by lists that would go missing. Sometimes the same list would be accidentally printed twice, leading to duplication of work.

The Solution
After months of operating the traditional way the company realized that its current system would not be able to support its growing business. Company chooses to implement Naxtor warehouse management solution (WMS) to solve these challenges. Naxtor WMS is a cost effective yet feature rich warehouse management system (WMS) designed for small to mid sized wholesale distributors like New Age & Beyond.

The company is able to optimise warehouse operations by automating the pick and receive and various productivity reports and tools at staff disposal create a paper-free (paperless) warehouse environment.

The warehouse was also integrated with company MYOB accounting system to track backlog orders as well as safety stock levels thus improving significantly inventory situation. Where previously the staff team would use traditional means such as sticky notes and paper, the system is now updated in real time as products leave or arrive on the warehouse floor.

The WMS has also turned into a powerful benchmarking tool for the organization. Now the warehouse manger able to accurately track its productivity levels throughout the day, and is able to strategically schedule the staff to ensure order completion during the busiest times.

After only one 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.