Enabling Efficient Stock Taking

A major retailer was undertaking annual stocktaking in all stores and therefore had limited visibility of stock inventory for much of the year. They found it difficult to effectively replenish and merchandise without more accurate information. They wanted a new process that would enable them to stock take each store at least four times a year and some more than once every other month. To achieve this they had to greatly improve the efficiency of the process and had a desire to allow work such as re-labelling to occur in parallel.

To enable this IVIS Group developed a solution providing all staff with hand-held devices linked to central systems for use during the stock take.As well as improving efficiency this enabled managers to have access to stock data in real time as the stock take took place. The system also used location information to help find missing items as well as spotting obvious miss-picks, picking crossovers and missed deliveries - allowing area managers to tailor the discrepancy report.

The solution also highlights stock that can be transferred to other branches and allows staff to pick while the stock take is underway. The solution reduced the time taken for stocktaking by 67% and has reduced stock loss by 0.3% - a significant saving for a business turning over £500 million per annum. A reduction of 56% has been achieved in mislabelled or unlabelled products in their stores.