Care-A-Lot Pet Supply has been providing customers with pet supplies since 1989, either through their catalog, online store, or retail stores located in Newport News and Virginia Beach, VA. The distribution center (located in Virginia Beach, VA) operates from a facility with over 50,000 square feet and more than 2,800 products stored, ready to fill orders. The distribution center is responsible for maintaining all supplies offered by the Care-A-Lot Catalog, On-line store as well as all retail stores.

Challenge

Care-A-Lot’s challenge was to increase productivity and improve efficiency while receiving products from suppliers and fulfilling orders placed by patrons of Care-A-Lot’s catalog, online store and retail stores. “We receive and ship thousands of products a day and we needed something to help streamline the process,” said Paul Camping, Inventory & Receiving Manager for Care-A-Lot Pet Supply.

“In the past our employees had to take all of the ‘To Be Received’ or ‘To Be Shipped’ products from their location, to the computer and then to their next destination. This process was cumbersome and inefficient.” said Camping.

Solution

“As our company has grown it has been my responsibility to find new technologies that simplify procedures and increase productivity,” said Richard Pekarsky, Network Manager for Care-A-Lot Pet Supply. “A technological intervention was needed in our shipping and receiving process, however, we were initially unable to find technology that would meet our specific needs. Newcastle Systems not only provided exactly what we needed, but also afforded an incredible purchasing experience.”

The NB400 Series carts were tested in the distribution center, by scanning in new products at the receiving docks. The carts were then moved to inventory pallets where products were pulled, scanned, and prepared for the shipping department. “The carts were so successful that more were purchased for our retail store locations,” said Pekarsky.

Results

Since the carts have been introduced in May of 2006, their workers are more efficient and productivity has increased by 40%. It has also decreased the time employees dedicate to product movement. Due to the mobility and wireless ability of the carts, their employees have larger work areas which has allowed for a more prolific work environment. “The cost savings of the carts were immediately apparent,” said Camping. Care-A-Lot also uses the carts as label makers for pallets and general organization. “It saved time when you can print out a label while standing in front of it instead of walking across the warehouse to a workstation printing it out and walking back,” said Brad Voorhes, Supervisor for Care-A-Lot.

“I chose Newcastle Systems for many reasons – its ease of mobility, long lasting battery, ease of use and ability to choose our own hardware. Our business relies on our ability to receive and distribute products swiftly and efficiently. We rely on Newcastle Systems to help us accomplish that goal.”

Challenge

Streamline an existing process of inventory management which requires an employee to obtain inventory levels by hand (pencil and paper) and then manually type them into an excel spreadsheet – one at a time.  Because inventory was taken throughout the facility, the hardware would have to be mobile, rugged, and most importantly – ergonomic for the user.  The software would have to be a batch application because the existing wireless infrastructure did not provide coverage in all areas in which inventory would be taken.

Solution

The first step was to determine which piece of hardware would accomplish all tasks at hand, in an efficient manor.  In order for the hardware to work, it would have to meet the following guidelines:

1. Efficiently run the inventory management application
2. Be comfortable for the user
3. Withstand day-to-day abuse
4. Meet budget requirements

The chosen piece of hardware was the MC9090.  Known for its fast operating system, comfortable pistol grip, and rugged casing this device was preferred by the end user after a hands on demo was undergone.

Once the hardware was determined it was time to develop the custom software.  The software would be required to meet the following guide lines:

1. Integrate bar code scanning to eliminate the possibility of user error
2. Walk the user through the inventory entry process step by step
3. Easily export the data from the device to the host application

After working with the end users and inventory managers, the custom application was able to capture all the necessary data from the user, and easily export that data to the host PC.  The programming language of choice was Microsoft C# because of its ease of integration with the Windows Mobile operating system.

Results

A method of capturing inventory levels by eliminating the possibility of human error while recording SKUs, and entering data into the host.  In addition to the elimination of human error was the increase in employee productivity.  By scanning a single (pipe delimited) bar code they were able to replace the manual entry of four individual fields of data – all of which took time and money.

A few screen shots of custom application:

The screen that greets the user when the device is started allows them to specify what action they are performing. In this case they can choose either a ‘Charge Out’ or a ‘Warehouse Return’, as those were the two possible procedures for this specific application.

Upon clicking either ‘Next’ or the tab title ‘Account’, the user is prompted with the following screen – asking them for an account number and work order number.  There is more to this screen than meets the eye because certain GL Acct # inputs would prompt the user for specific values – WO#, Item#, etc.  All of which would be recorded in the back end and exported later.

This brings us to the area of the application that helped eliminate the possibility of human error, and drastically improve efficiency.  Because much of their inventory was bar coded in ‘pipe delimited’ format, we were able to allow the user to scan a bar code to capture all the data that was needed: Warehouse Number, Bin Location, and Item Number.

Once the user hits enter they were able to submit the data, which would write it to an XML file on the device and allow for ease of export once the device was connected to the host application.