With over 40 years in the health and wellness space, Optimal Health Systems has experienced many warehouse transformations. As their order volumes continued to scale, it was evident that their previous technology was not able to keep up with their overall supply chain, causing order efficiency to suffer. The team decided to invest in NetSuite to complement their accounting and warehousing needs. With a strong ERP as the backbone of their operations, they began the search for a warehouse management system (WMS) to alleviate their pain points, including long shipment times, inconsistent data, and difficulties in demand planning. RF-SMART was the perfect choice to address these concerns and optimize their warehouse processes.
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Expiration Consideration
Optimal Health Systems has the complex challenge of managing inventory for over 70 products that have associated expiration dates. For this reason, they pick with the first-in, first-out (FIFO) method. RF-SMART’s picking logic can accommodate FIFO by directing employees to the correct stock in the constraints of the expiry date. In this way, the warehouse pickers are guided by their handhelds to the oldest stock in the warehouse, making sure the Optimal Health team is utilizing all available product.
The Optimal Health warehouse organizes inventory by lots. RF-SMART’s bin management technology allows the team to move appropriate product to pick-facing bins with FIFO in mind. “We have so much product and we’re moving so fast, we must be sure our lots are being organized efficiently," said Tresha Preston, Optimal Health Systems Inventory Manager. RF-SMART works within our FIFO model to ensure older lots are being picked from first.”
Speed Matters
For the Optimal Health team, it was imperative that their customer’s experience mirror the level of excellence and care found in their groundbreaking wellness products. The shipping process is a crucial part of that. Before investing in RF-SMART Shipping, the team was working with a third-party shipping solution. They quickly found that this software was too slow for their business needs.
“With our previous shipping solution, you would have to be careful how fast you typed in the order search bar. If you clicked on a button too soon, it would kick you back to the previous screen,” said Tresha. Additionally, the user interface required manual input from the user to get an international shipment completed. This left their team with long shipping times, averaging 2–3 minutes to print a label per domestic shipment, and up to 20 minutes for international shipments.
RF-SMART’s easy-to-use scanning-led process was able to overcome these issues and boost their overall shipping speed. Skyler Beals, Optimal Health Systems IT Specialist, confirmed that this was a major improvement for their team. “RF-SMART Shipping is much faster. It is so much easier and cleaner than our previous solution, and I’ve been really impressed with it,” said Skyler. Now up and running on RF-SMART Shipping, they cut their average time to print a label to a third of their previous print time.
Well-Timed Implementation
Aside from the software functionality itself, the Optimal Health team found the implementation process to be another key benefit of choosing RF-SMART Shipping. The timing of this implementation was an important consideration. After trudging through a long-winded shipping implementation earlier in the year with their previous solution, they were encouraged by RF-SMART’s process. “The implementation of the previous solution took two months, and RF-SMART’s implementation took a quarter of that time. From that standpoint alone, the two implementation experiences were very different - RF-SMART was much faster,” said Tresha.
Avoiding a steep learning curve proved to be another unexpected advantage of transitioning to RF-SMART Shipping. By decreasing the tedious manual processes of the last solution, the Optimal Health team found that users were having an easier time adapting to RF-SMART Shipping. “I’ve been able to ship at a shipping station with no training, and I am really impressed with how easy it is to use,” said Skyler. This also safeguards the time of the employees responsible for training new hires and keeps them from spending hours training new team members.
A Healthy Outcome
With both RF-SMART's WMS and RF-SMART Shipping in place, Optimal Health Systems saw significant increases in overall supply chain success. Inventory accuracy was one of the most important benefits they received. Before RF-SMART, there was not a clear record of the inventory available in the warehouse. Now, by seeing their data in real-time, they are confident that their NetSuite inventory records are error-free. “With RF-SMART, we have visibility into the data of preferred stock levels, which reduces the number of backorders. That has been super helpful,” said Tresha.
The increase in inventory visibility has also reduced the number of partial shipments. Before RF-SMART, there were many times where the team struggled to get orders out the door because they did not have the appropriate product on the shelf to fulfill an order. With RF-SMART, they were able to decrease the frequency of this issue, and further ensure their inventory was up to date in NetSuite.
With these improvements to both picking and shipping, they were able to accomplish a higher level of customer care. Optimal Health Systems’ goal is to have all orders out the door within 48 hours, and this is now a reality for their team. “We have had multiple messages from customers letting us know they are getting their packages sooner," Tresha said. This feedback has further reiterated that their partnership with RF-SMART is having a tangible impact on the customer experience and is improving overall company success.