In their 40 years of business, Mann Lake has grown from two locations to six across multiple states. Shana Rowlette, Mann Lake Chief Financial Officer, was confident NetSuite could help them meet their scaling business needs. “As our company grows, we are making a strong investment in our information technology,” said Shana. After a failed implementation of a different warehousing solution, they decided to look for a more robust system to meet their complex requirements. “We wanted to choose a system that will grow with us, not limit us,” Shana said. This was the mindset that led them to select RF-SMART for NetSuite for their warehouse management system.
Before implementing NetSuite and RF-SMART, Mann Lake’s team was counting product manually, using pen and paper for all inventory tracking. This required workers to check off inventory on a paper pick ticket, then give that pick ticket to the office team to input into their system of record. With this method, there was never a true, real-time view of what product they had on hand. To alleviate this pain point, they utilized two workers to count and check inventory full-time, increasing their labor costs. All these issues were solved through RF-SMART’s scanning-led receiving and picking. “I don’t think we were even hitting 50% accuracy pre-RF-SMART. Now, we are sitting closer to 90%. That is a huge improvement,” said Shana.
In addition, before RF-SMART, Mann Lake was having a hard time maintaining visibility into product location. “Even if we knew where the inventory was, we had 600 of one item split between six physical bin locations - we couldn’t track how many were in each bin,” said Shana. This cost the workers time and energy trying to locate all the product spread throughout different bins in the warehouse. “You had to walk around trying to navigate where the product for the order was. That was super time consuming.” RF-SMART scanning allows all data to be input into NetSuite in real-time, creating a clear picture of the inventory and its physical location.
With all inventory being scanned into NetSuite, Mann Lake can take advantage of RF-SMART Counting. Before RF-SMART, Mann Lake’s inventory was being tracked with Item Fulfillments. Every time a count took place, the warehouse worker would have to navigate back and forth between the office and the warehouse floor to see what Item Fulfillments had been processed that day. “We used to physically shut down our warehouse for 3-4 days a year just to complete a full physical inventory count,” said Shana. With RF-SMART Stock Count Hybrid, this is a now a non-issue.
RF-SMART’s Stock Count Hybrid function allows warehouse workers to count any specific bin, aisle, or location with their handheld. This can be completed during production and requires minimal planning on the warehouse manager’s part. This allowed the Mann Lake team to count throughout the day and avoid relying on one annual physical count. “We can now decide to count a specific aisle or bin in the warehouse. It’s given us overall counting improvements,” said Shana.
The Mann Lake team also found increased productivity with the help of RF-SMART. From picking to packing, they were looking for heightened visibility and metrics to lean on as they set worker goals. With RF-SMART’s handheld-driven functions, the team is now able to see a wide variety of metrics on each worker, including average picking and packing times, how many line items are being picked within a certain time, and more.
Increased visibility allowed Shana to have a baseline that helps her team plan expected efficiencies. “I can now get into the details to see our productivity averages. This allows us to set expectations on how many lines should be picked each day. Now, we can plan how much time it’s going to take to get needed results,” said Shana. This has also helped their team project how many orders they can expect to pick in a given time range, improving their ability to forecast and predict productivity output.
Before implementing RF-SMART, Mann Lake was struggling with inefficient picking; they used pen and paper, the one-to-one picking method, and often relied on administrative staff to take on picking tasks to keep up with the incoming orders. It was most apparent during their busy season that the increased picking demand needed to be met with a solution that was quick, paperless, and less labor-intensive. “One frustrating day, it took me over two hours to pick 30 identical Amazon orders for the exact same item; this should’ve been quick and easy,” said Shana. After seeing pickers (and non-picking staff ) waste significant time travelling through the warehouse, Mann Lake ultimately decided they needed an efficient, robust picking solution.
With RF-SMART’s Pick Planner, Mann Lake can now automate the entire pick plan process using advanced picking scenarios, such as grouping orders by bin level. Not long after implementing Pick Planner, the Mann Lake team picked significantly more orders with 10% fewer staff during their two busiest weeks of the year. “We relied on paper pick tickets before implementing Pick Planner. Between previously unhelpful ticket sorting options and the lack of bin level visibility, we had staff that would literally go back-and-forth multiple times throughout the warehouse - just for one order,” said Shana. “The efficiency now is huge. RF-SMART’s Pick Planner has eliminated the guesswork and helped our team save time by directing warehouse employees through the optimal picking path, skipping the main bins if they don’t have enough items to fulfill those orders.” Not only has Mann Lake been able to boost productivity, Pick Planner granted them the flexibility to scale output without expanding labor during those high volume months.
When it came time to evaluate their shipping solution, switching to RF-SMART Shipping was a seamless transition for the Mann Lake team. “It just made sense – why not have everything in one system?” said Shana. “We were attracted to the ease of just working with one business partner. The relationship with RF-SMART was a breath of fresh air.” The switch to RF-SMART Shipping streamlined their workflows and eliminated the need for multiple platforms, reducing complexity and enhancing efficiency.
In addition to consolidating their vendors, the Mann Lake team was examining their bottom line and looking for ways to save. Ease of use was the determining factor in transitioning to RF-SMART Shipping.
“Outside of the financials, the biggest driver was RF-SMART Shipping is a more user-friendly system than our previous solution,” said Shana. They were impressed by the intuitive interface, which provided a welcome change compared to their previous experiences.
The Mann Lake team appreciated RF-SMART’s proactive approach to understanding their pain points and finding solutions tailored to their needs. “It was just so easy to work with and communicate with RF-SMART,” said Carol Pelkey, Director of Warehousing at Mann Lake. It put the Mann Lake team at ease to know that the RF-SMART team was ready to support them promptly and efficiently with any challenges or questions.
The implementation process for RF-SMART Shipping was quick, and the Mann Lake team felt confident in the training they received. What truly stood out was the immediate impact on their operations, with a significant increase in productivity and the ability to make informed decisions in real-time through the dashboard insights. “We shipped out 12% more orders while decreasing labor by 10%,” said Shana. “With RF-SMART Shipping, we are able to meet or exceed our SLA requirements.”
Previously faced with manually inputting weights and dimensions for thousands of SKUs, the Mann Lake team added RF-SMART’s Automation for Mobile Dimensioning to their supply chain tool kit. Using a QBOID M2 Mobile Dimensioner equipped with RF-SMART’s Automation solution, Mann Lake was able to bypass countless hours of tedious, manual work by simply scanning the items with the QBOID M2, calculating the dimensions, capturing weight, and uploading them in real-time straight to NetSuite. “Mobile Dimensioning was a game changer. We were losing money by not having proper weights and dimensions in the system,” said Shana. “With QBOID and RF-SMART’s Automation solution, we processed the weights and dimensions on 95% of our 12,000 SKUs within a week.”
Without the assistance of RF-SMART and the QBOID M2, the Mann Lake team would have spent months updating their data in NetSuite. “Without Mobile Dimensioning, we would have had to put 6-8 people on this full time to get done in 2-3 months with manually measuring and weighing everything and keying back into the system,” said Shana. The Mann Lake team realized immediate ROI in labor cost savings through the adoption of Mobile Dimensioning.
Beyond data collection, QBOID and RF-SMART’s Automation solution provided invaluable visual context with the ability to capture item images on the QBOID device and upload those images to the NetSuite item record. This aided in quick identification and verification of items, especially for those with similar appearances or obscure labeling, and not only expediting their receiving processes but enhancing accuracy. “Mobile dimensioning was extremely beneficial,” said Carol.
Mann Lake has also found success with RF-SMART’s scanning-led manufacturing process. They are currently using work orders to pull inventory and stage it in their production before reporting progress back to NetSuite. This has been monumentally beneficial for their production process. “We have production running 24/7. Before RF-SMART, we would have six weekend shifts worth of production to enter into the system on Monday morning. We were never fully accurate because of this,” said Shana. With RF-SMART’s real-time data transmission to NetSuite, warehouse staff communicate directly back to the ERP. “Now, my production managers can look in the system over the weekend and feel confident in the data they see.”
One of the challenges they now face is organizing customizable inventory into appropriate production locations. Leaning on RF-SMART's warehousing experts, the team plans to reorganize the flow of inventory to create a clear system of rules for warehouse workers to use when slotting product. The Mann Lake team is looking forward to continuing to grow their manufacturing capabilities with RF-SMART.
“We got to where we are by providing a good customer experience and having the best quality product, much like RF-SMART,” said Shana. “It’s been a good partnership, and we are looking forward to the continued partnership in the future.”