Based in Melbourne, Australia, Sleepcorp provides quality sleep and healthcare products locally and internationally. “As we continue to grow, our goal is to sell majority Australian-made products. We decided to start working on and using new technology in dispatch and production so we could achieve this goal,” said Jay Patel, Sleepcorp’s IT Systems Manager. As they searched for the right solution to help them meet this company target, they chose to partner with RF-SMART. “RF-SMART is a champion of NetSuite, and we knew they would help our team automate processes through that expertise,” said Jay.
Pain Points Solved with Automation
Before implementing RF-SMART, Sleepcorp manually tracked all their inventory by documenting transactions on excel sheets. This was opening their operations to a slew of manual mistakes. “It was lengthy and tedious work,” said Jay. In addition, their picking process was very labor intensive. Once a purchase order was received, a pick ticket would be printed off and a user on the floor would search for the pick. From there, they would go back to a desktop terminal to input the pick information back into
NetSuite. “Since it wasn’t a live transition of the data, it was very hard to manage those orders,” said Jay.
To optimize this process, they invested in an Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) Grid for their warehouse. This tower structure of 160 shelves holds over 3,000 SKUS. With the implementation of this hardware, they realized there was a gap in communication from NetSuite to the AMR Grid, and they needed a solution to connect the two. “We reached out to different vendors and solution providers, and none of them could deliver the solution we hoped for,” said Jay. “We had done projects with RF-SMART before, so we laid out the whole picture of what we needed . RF-SMART was able to make it happen for us.”
RF-SMART’s Automation Module now connects the inventory data from NetSuite to the AMR, so their software and hardware are all within their system of record. Enabled by RF-SMART, their 16 autonomous robots leverage the AMR Grid to putaway and pick all products. These shelves move automatically, so each robot can pick the appropriate product and then bring them to the final picking area. “With RF-SMART Automation, we have eliminated the manual aspects of the picking process,” said Jay. “By adding AMR and RF-SMART, we increased our daily picking by 65%. It’s amazing.” This has helped their team find up to 40% improvements in efficiency and output from a resource perspective.
Accuracy Improvements
Another pain point for the Sleepcorp team was inaccuracies in their counting process. “It was always challenging for us, we were never getting an actual live count,” said Jay. “This data wasn’t connected to any system. As soon as we finished a whole warehouse count, we’d have to update everything in our records and then manually compare to the previous count.” Implementing RF-SMART allowed them to finally find a counting process that helped them achieve inventory accuracy without added headaches.
They are now utilizing RF-SMART’s cycle counting functionality on a quarterly basis for their fast-moving products. This feature allows users on the warehouse floor to count areas of their warehouse based on chosen criteria. “Our most recent inventory count was at 98.9% accuracy, which had never been done in our business before,” said Jay. This improved process is also helping Sleepcorp proactively safeguard their accuracy each time they run a count. “RF-SMART gives you all the safety checks you need before starting a count, so you don’t have to remember steps to prepare,” said Jay. Overall, RF-SMART’s counting functions have helped them achieve a swift return on investment while continuing to update and improve their inventory control.
Forward-Facing Success
Jay and his team are seeing downstream improvements in their customer experience because of these supply chain upgrades. They have seen improvements in demand planning by leveraging the RF-SMART
min/max functions in their bin locations. This makes sure proper stock is on hand and notifies them when replenishments are needed. “Because we now have real-time inventory information, we can check the inventory data on a daily basis,” said Jay. “We have reduced our back-order issues by 60%. That was a hugely positive benefit for our team.” This helps them meet the customer’s needs more effectively, without requiring additional resources.
With these end-to-end improvements, RF-SMART has proven to be a strong partner to support their growth. “We are managing our stock and our operations cash flow better with RF-SMART,” said Jay. “I’ve worked with around 14 different vendors within our business, and the responsiveness of the RF-SMART team is ideal,” said Jay. “They know how to deliver the right solution, and they have an in depth understanding of supply chain and production.”