Ironmongery and homeware supplier More Handles in Carlisle has used new technology to help it grow into a multimillion-pound turnover business.
For a business operation to expand, it needs to become more efficient. Robot technology can help, but replacing manual handling equipment with robots is too expensive for many small to medium businesses.
More Handles carries over 80,000 hardware and electrical products and needed a system to keep track of inventory and orders. Its solution was to use a system developed by OGL Computer that integrates the key aspects of their business, retail showroom, ecommerce website and a trade counter.
The commercial manager of More Handles, Mike Hunt, said:
“All orders are automatically imported directly, removing any extra staff involvement and the subsequent costs and potential errors. The time-cost saving of this system is crucial to our business model.”
The technology still uses a warehouse team that manually picks items. The software, which also handles purchasing and order management, directs the pickers to item locations and checks that all picked orders are complete.
The success of the system has resulted in the growth of More Handles into a multimillion-pound business, whilst still using a small warehouse team.
Integrating technology with pickers who manually handle orders and move items with warehouse trolleys is an effective system that can handle large order volumes quickly and efficiently. Warehouse owners rely on warehouse packing equipment and trolley suppliers to provide the best manual handling equipment, which can then be integrated with warehouse management technology.
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